Echoy'la Par Ner Kar'taylir Darasuum
by RebelliousWaffle
Summary: The Battle of Coruscant marks a turning point in Sabine's life: when she stopped combing the galaxy aimlessly and found a lead on Ezra's whereabouts. This is Sabine's journal from the search and the years after said search.
1. Chapter 1: Te Aka Begins

_Echoy'la par ner kar'taylir darasuum._

 _It means, "Searching for my love."_

Chapter Title Means: _The Search Begins_

* * *

 _Lothal, Lothal System_

 _Around 4 ABY_

 _1200 Hours_

* * *

I touched my hand to Ezra's painted face. Tears threatened to roll down my cheeks, but somehow I held them back. I knew my next mission now. Defending Lothal was good and all, but something in my life was lacking.

More correctly, _someone_.

I didn't care if I had to trek to the edges of the galaxy, or even into Wild Space. If he was on Tatooine, Mandalore or Coruscant. Even if he was…

 _No. That's not gonna happen._

Ahsoka lightly struck the ground with her staff behind me. I still didn't entirely understand why she ad decided to be entirely clothed in white, but it was her clothes, not mine. I could never leave my Beskar plating. It was my second skin.

I walked towards Ahsoka slowly, putting my helmet on as I went. The T-6 shuttle behind her was my personal ticket to whatever planet that my Jedi was (probably stranded) on.

"You're ready, I presume?" Ahsoka asked, looking at me with sympathetic eyes.

"Yes."

Ahsoka turned around, leading me towards the shuttle. I followed willingly. The T-6 shuttle looked massive, but most of it was just the ridiculously large wingspan.

Inside the ship was comfortable, although a bit cramped. Two cabins inside, each with a bed, closet, table and a refresher. Really, it was more like a suite, as it also had a holoscreen. Not bad for a reasonably outdated ship. It didn't have any weapons in the standard model, unfortunately, but Alliance technicians had fitted it with TIE Fighter lasers. A common room was also included on the ship, with a dejark table, another holoscreen and several (rather comfy) couches. The cockpit had four seats, two of which were pilot and copilot seats. Though you only needed one to fly the ship.

It flew smoothly, too, as I found out when Ahsoka expertly flew the ship towards the area where Ezra had jumped away with the Purrgil.

"Where did Ezra jump away? What direction?" Ahsoka asked. I pointed over to our left. That was the way that I had seen the Purrgil take Ezra. Hopefully, they had dropped him off at the nearest inhabited planet. Or the nearest planet on the chart; I wasn't particular.

Ahsoka turned the shuttle towards the direction I had pointed, checked the nav chart and frowned.

"You mean towards Dac?"

"Dac?" I asked. I wasn't familiar with the term.

"Mon Calamari. Sorry for my outdated vocabulary."

"It's fine. And yes, I do. Are there any places on the route that might be inhabited?"

"Um…" Ahsoka bit her lip. "There's Mantan, New Heurkea and Sanctuary. The map doesn't show much else. The Kamdom system, maybe, but that only has Talas and one other planet that isn't even named."

"Which is closest?"

"Kamdon system."

"Let's head there first."

And with that, we were off.

* * *

 _Outside the Kamdon System_

 _Around 6 ABY_

 _1700 Hours_

* * *

" _This is General Admiral Ackbar, of the Alliance to Restore the Republic, over an open channel to all Imperial, Rebellion and unaligned systems. The Alliance is no longer a Alliance. The New Republic has been formed out of the Rebellion, and has liberated half the galaxy."_

The camera cut to some footage of X-Wings dogfighting TIE Fighters, and several Alliance squads in the middle of fighting Imperial forces.

" _We have a important announcement to make to the galaxy. One that will change the galaxy as we know it, and will fracture the Empire now, and forever._ "

Already, I was excited, looking at the X-Wings weaving together in an amazing show of skill and precision as they easily destroyed the Imperial fighters.

A beautiful picture popped up, showing several Alliance (sorry, New Republic) Urban Combat Specialists raising the New Republic flag over a dome. (I later found out it was the Senate Building.)

A X-Wing flew over a similar flag, this time on top of the Imperial Palace. " _Coruscant has been freed from Imperial control,_ " announced Ackbar. I clamped one hand over my mouth to stifle a scream in delight. The holoscreen shut off abruptly as the transmission was cut off, probably due to some fluctuation in the transmission.

"We're coming up on Sanctuary now, Sabine," Ahsoka called over the intercom. I caught myself nodding unconsciously. We had already searched the Kamdon system with some quick scanning, and nothing of interest had turned up.

Sanctuary was a Rebel safe world, I knew. It was a small, island-dotted oceanic planet located in Mon Calamari Space, and was one of the oldest and most well-known Rebel Alliance safe world colonies. Predating the Declaration of Rebellion, in fact. Sanctuary was originally settled by religious pacifists dodging an Imperial draft. These colonists joined the Alliance on the condition that they would not have to fight in the war against the Galactic Empire. So began a mutually beneficial relationship, in which Sanctuary accepted all manner of Rebels and political exiles seeking asylum from Imperial oppression in exchange for equipment that would boost the planet's agricultural capability.

I sighed as I swung my legs off the bed. My time in the Academy was a memory I tried to suppress, but Sanctuary was one of the first planets I had gone to after Ketsu abandoned me. It was a mixed memory for me, half good and half bad.

I had barely slept on the way to Sanctuary. It wasn't the T-6 being a uncomfortable ship, because it was actually luxurious. It was the anxiety that I wouldn't find Ezra. That he would die somewhere, alone and forgotten. I wouldn't allow that. I _couldn't_.

With all my thoughts swirling around in my head, I lost touch with reality and ran into my door.

"Oww…" I muttered.

"Sabine, stop running into doorways," Ahsoka called from the cockpit. I smiled in spite of my embarrassment. That was the second time Ahsoka called me out.

"I'll try my best," I called back.

A few minutes later, I was sitting in the cockpit of the T-6, serene in the moment. Sanctuary was just in front of the shuttle, and we were nearing the main landing spot in the city. We had gotten landing clearance a few seconds earlier. If I had the time, I would probably paint the view that visitors got on the way to it. Water crashing into the black cliffs, the fields of golden wheat beyond the elegant city.

The T-6 touched down on the landing pad lightly. Apparently, Ahsoka had been honing her flying skills over the last couple years. She was no Hera, but she was good.

"So, where do we start?" I asked as we walked down the boarding ramp. Sanctuary was a fairly large planet, with a population of around 30,000 people.

"First, we check into Sanctuary," Ahsoka responded, pointing to a Customs booth. I mentally facepalmed. My overeagerness got the better of me.

The droid in the booth was dumb. _Really_ dumb. It stared blankly at us- no surprise there- and asked for our Rebel IDs.

 _Rebel IDs._ Any Imperial comes down, with his armor on and his bucket on his head, and asks if he can go into the city, and this droid asks for a Rebel ID. Even droids from the Clone Wars hadn't been this dumb. I'm known across the galaxy as a Rebel who fought in almost every major engagement, from Hoth to the closing hours of Endor, and Ahsoka is, well, Ahsoka. And this droid is still asking for our IDs.

I took out mine from my travel bag and passed it over the counter with Ahsokas. The droid took them, probably analyzed them, and waited two minutes before clearing us to Sanctuary.

The yellow ray shield dropped, allowing us to pass through the threshold into the city. Houses lined the wide street, which had a thick screen of people. Ahsoka pointed to a large, three story house on the corner, with a sign on the doorway. The characters of the sign were in Aurebesh, spelling out ' _Dingo's Inn_ ' in Aurebesh characters. It was kinda pretty, the way that it was bathed in blue light. Ahsoka led the way in. She was leading a lot on this trip. I was happy with letting her direct us for the time being, but as soon as we had some concrete evidence, I wasn't gonna sleep until I saw Ezra alive and well back on Lothal.

Inside the inn, a few tables were set up with four seats at each. Around the corners of the room were two and four people booths, with some patrons inside them. I took note of some stairs on the left hand side of the room. Those would probably lead to some sort of lodging, probably private.

Ahsoka walked over to the bar and sat down. I followed suit. The bartender looked like he was in his late thirties, with a mess of brown hair on top of a oval-ish head. He had intelligent eyes, a little bit like Ezra's, except they were green. He wore a grey tee shirt, and he was also pretty strong, from the looks of it. On his shirt was my Starbird, which had actually become a really good line of art from yours truly. It featured several battles between Rebels and Imperials, in which I had made all the Rebel troopers have some sort of Starbrid insignia. My most recent one had the Starbird on a Rebel flag.

Oh, and in all the paintings, most of the Imperial flags/symbols were KUBAR (Kriffed Up Beyond All Recognition) as a extra little prod at the Imps.

"Hey," the bartender said, his tone somewhat more friendly than most of the bartenders I had run into. "Want anything to drink?"

"Water," Ahsoka said.

"Make it two," I added.

The bartender nodded and poured our water, putting them in front of us. This guy was nice. "What brings you here? I'm Max Farlou, by the way."

"You know Ezra Bridger?" I asked the bartender.

"I know of him."

"We're trying to find him. He went missing about four years ago." _That_ got the Max's attention. "He was taken away by some space-whales called _Purrgil_. Um.. did any come through here?"

"I'm not sure. I've heard some vague rumors about a crashed Star Destroyer- I know that part is true- but the rumors say that a Chiss was found on board. I'm not so sure about that," Max responded. "Isn't the Empire really, really anti-alien?"

"Yeah, but their greatest Admiral was a Chiss named Thrawn," Ahsoka answered.

"Greatest is debatable," I countered.

"No, it's not," Ahsoka said with a unmistakeable note of power in her voice. "Anyways, can we stay here for possibly the next couple weeks? We need to search the crashed Destroyer."

"Yeah. It's 150 creds a night. Uhh… I heard about the reformation of the Republic, so are you guys using some sort of new currency, or what? I was putting the price in Imperial Credits."

"As far as I know, the New Republic is still using Imperial Credits. We're just renaming them Republic Credits, I think. So, may we see our rooms?"

A hundred-fifty credits might sound like a lot of money, but it's not. Minimum wage is twenty creds an hour. I make around fifty to a hundred thousand per painting. Right now, my bank balance was two hundred seventy-five thousand credits. Around three-quarters was from paintings, and the rest was from the payment I got from the Rebellion. As a Commander, I had occasionally been called to fight in major battles; Hoth, Endor, and Bespin, to name a few. I'd actually been in most of them. Everytime I participated, I got a nice wad of money- around five thousand credits. Again, that sounds like a lot, but the Empire pays it's Stormtroopers about five hundred credits an hour. The Alliance had given payroll on a participation basis, where if you were in a battle, you got credits. If you weren't in the battle, you didn't get credits. Simple, really.

"Yeah. They're upstairs. The stairwell on the right," Max said helpfully.

"You mean the only stairwell?" I asked, somewhat too forcefully. Max looked hurt, but he nodded. After a moment, I added, "Sorry."

Immediately, Max's face brightened. "It's okay, Miss."

"It's Sabine."

Max's jaw dropped to the floor. "S-Sabine Wren? The Rebel from Mandalore? Lothal Rebels Sabine Wren?"

"The same." I wasn't all that surprised that Max was shocked. I was something of a legend in the Rebellion/New Republic. Just the fact I was one of the original Rebels was enough to make me a celebrity; but being on the _Ghost_ , along with my status in the New Republic, had elevated me to legendary. Not to mention getting Mandalore on the Rebellion's side, of course. I was Sabine Wren, Mandalorian Protector of Lothal to many people.

But I wasn't in the mood for other people to worship me. "Stop gawking at me. I know I'm a legend and all, but please don't treat me like it."

Max nodded several times. Then, he gave me two passcards. "Just take these. They're the keys to the two best rooms. The rooms are the farthest down the hall."

I thanked Max and walked up the stairs confidently, absently running my hand over the whitewashed walls. At the very end of the hallway were two rooms, as Max had said. Then, I thought, _Why would he lie?_ He thought of me as a hero, far as I could figure.

The two rooms were almost identical. I say almost because they were mirror images of each other. A two person bed in each one, with two nightstands on each side. The walls were whitewashed and decorated with pictures of Rebel art. I was pleased to see a Rebel recruiting poster designed by _moi_ , with pictures of A-Wings flying around and the _Liberator_ in the background. The poster had the words _Fly For Freedom_ written across it, going diagonally upwards from the left.

Hera was inside one of the A-Wings. Ohmygod, Hera! I had forgotten all about her. Quickly, I took out my holoprojector and called Hera. Within seconds, she answered.

"Sabine!" she called joyfully.

"Hera," I responded, happy that I was able to reach her. "How you doing?"

"Better, now that you've called. I was kinda worried, what with you not calling."

"Sorry. We were checking out the Talas system, and now we're on Sanctuary. A Destroyer crashed a couple days ago, and apparently salvage crews found a very Imperial-looking, blue skinned humanoid. Know anyone that fits the description?"

"Well, if it isn't Thrawn they found. At least he's dead."

"At least. Anyways, nobody's found a trace of Ezra, as far as I'm concerned, although somebody did say that they saw a bunch of escape pods jettison from the _Chimera_ before it crashed. I heard them in the inn."

"Wait, you're staying at an inn?"

"Yeah. What about it?"

"What's its name?"

"Dingo's Inn. Wait, don't tell me…"

"Yup. We're coming to you, Sabine."

" _We?_ "

"Me and Jacen."

"You and Jacen."

"Me and Jacen."

I sat back on my bed, half horrified and half happy. Jacen was a nice kid. He was pretty good at finding lost things (don't ask how I found out). He had an uncanny ability to detect Force-sensitive things, as I found out when Ahsoka was first introduced to him. Immediately, he knew she was a Jedi.

"Alright, fine," I said, capitulating. Hera smiled.

"That's good. Even if you weren't fine, we were coming anyways."

"Of course you were."

I shut off the holocomm and lounged back on my bed. I hadn't been this close to victory before, and at the same time so far away. I had no idea if Ezra was actually on the Destroyer, I had no idea if he was even on the _planet_ , but if he was then we could get him very, very soon.

I was scared and hopeful at the same time.

* * *

 _ **Hey everybody, thanks for pointing out my date mistake so kindly. It is now fixed.**_

 _ **-RebelliousWaffle**_


	2. Chapter 2: Echoy'la Adol Te Rubble

Title Means: _Searching Through The Rubble_

 ** _I'm not going to say much here. Just that this story did way better than I expected at first, especially considering that I nearly abandoned this story. Thank you guys. Also, it is 1:12 when I'm posting this, which means I have been writing for about five hours now._**

 ** _To DarthQuill917: Told ya I'd get this out quickly._**

 ** _To PetaZedrok: Thanks for pointing out my mistake so kindly._**

 ** _To Dshuh97: Again, thanks for pointing out my mistake kindly._**

 ** _To Spectre6: Man found._**

 ** _To MaybeImARebel: You are reading this exactly fifteen minutes after it's posted, I'm guessing._**

* * *

I think Thrawn had managed to crash in the messiest way possible.

I could tell that the Destroyer was up ahead just by the increasing amount of debris. Durasteel plating was strewn across the fields, and on the way I had seen several unremarkable chunks of metal that were floating in the ocean. I thought they were TIE Fighters, and Ahsoka thought they were just burnt bits of _Chimera_. We never found out what they were.

The actual ISD had basically buried itself in dirt and water. As it had fallen, it cleaved a path through an island, and the back of the ship was still sticking up out of the water. I didn't see the bridge on the ship, because it was about a mile away from the ship. It was cracked open like a egg. Anyone in there had been guaranteed a very, very painful death as the ship fell. Those Purrgil were not kind to the ship.

Not that I was sad about them. They could burn for all I cared, those Imperial _dar'manda_. They had ruined my entire life, ripping me away from my family. Although, considering the fact that they had inadvertently given me Ezra, maybe they weren't all bad? I felt dirty just considering that, but it was still a valid question. Were they all bad? The Emperor was, as was Darth Vader, but, what about the average Stormtrooper? Most of Lothal's defense was now made up of disillusioned bucket-heads. TIE Pilots flew either remodeled Defenders or X-Wings, and crashes were unheard of.

A black-clad male guided us down onto a landing spot, near a large encampment. They had on search-and-rescue gear, which is how I was able to figure out that they were our guide down to the crashed Destroyer.

"Welcome," the SaR guy said. "I will be your guide to the Star Destroyer. My name is Bakiel."

He had quite the accent. Sounded… maybe Correllian? I didn't know for sure, but he was quite the cute person. Not that I was interested in him. I guess some might think he was a good match, but not me. I had a far more handsome guy, he was just…. Misplaced.

"Thank you," Ahsoka responded, nodding her head. "May we begin?"

"Of course."

Bakiel turned towards the cliff, motioning to a small locker within a tent. It had climbing gear inside. "We will need to rappel down. I'm assuming that you two know how to rappel?"

I nodded, as did Ahsoka. Normally, I have an excellent head for heights, but for some reason rappelling was scary to me. Probably because of a bad experience when I was about five, when I slipped because of my belayer accidentally letting go, when he had assumed that I had a solid grip on the top of the wall. (Spoiler: I didn't. The fall was very painful, and the fact that I broke my leg didn't help matters.)

The vests were very, very complicated to work with. I had five different straps to try and fit. Honestly, my jetpack would probably have been simpler. Eventually, I did get the straps to work, though, and I hooked into the rapel clip and stepped off the cliff, trusting my life to a little bungee rope and a few durasteel clips. Slowly, I descended, spinning all the way around the entire time. Slightly terrifying, as a matter of fact. I kept my hands on the cliff face the entire time, which ended up possibly saving my life.

Halfway down, the bungee cord snapped.

I felt the decrease in tension immediately, and because of my training, I grabbed onto the wall immediately. The rough stone cut my hands, but I didn't feel it. Too much terror coursing through my veins. The memory of my broken leg flashed into my mind, and I could _feel_ it: the pain, the terror, the… blankness.

My training reasserted itself. It spoke inside my mind. _Sabine, you are_ _ **trained**_ _for eventualities just as this. Get your legs onto the wall and free-climb down. You did it before, do it again._

I swung my legs onto the wall and looked down. About fifty feet of stone, then I was at the bottom. Several crags that cut into the wall would make good hand and footholds, but they might be slippery. I charted out my path carefully, then began to move. Tentatively at first, but I dropped down the wall with increasing speed. Forty feet now. Thirty feet. I was right: the crags were slippery with water, which had smoothed the stone. Carefully, I swung myself around them, and kept climbing down. The drop was now only about ten feet. I let go of the rock and dropped, rolling once I hit the ground.

A little old lady looked at me quizzically. "You know, young one, there's an elevator just over there."

I looked back up the cliff. Ahsoka was also halfway down, and her cord had just snapped too. I was torn between laughing at my brashness and getting angry at Bakiel for kriffing me over like that. The whole climb-down ritual was probably just that: a ritual. A rite of passage so we could get into the Star Destroyer.

Ahsoka dropped to the ground lightly. "That cord snap was intentional, wasn't it?"

"Probably," I answered, kneeling. Damn, that Destroyer was kriffed up. Big, too. It would take a while to find Ezra inside of that chaos.

"This is the Destroyer," Bakiel said flatly. Thanks, _alor'ad obvious._ (Captain Obvious for all you non-Mandalorians.) I looked at him murderously.

"And you made us climb why?" I asked, pointing to the lift.

"To prove that you would be able to handle the insides of the ship. It is chaos in there."

I walk up in full Mandalorian armor, painted vibrantly, ask to see the Destroyer, giving a Rebel ID as Sabine Wren, and they still think that I won't be able to handle it. Give me a break.

"Right," I drawled. "Let's go."

The ship loomed over us as we walked towards it. The engines looked about half as big as the Dome on Lothal, but now they were dark and dead. The ship had cracked in half, with the bow buried straight up in the air and the stern resting on the blackened, seared dirt that formed the trench that had been dug into the Earth. Several boulders had apparently smashed through the port (or left) side turbolaser batteries. The starboard side still had it's guns, but they had been cannibalized for materials. Out here, durasteel was a rare and valuable commodity.

"Where do we start?" Ahsoka asked. I pointed to the front.

"Start over there, then slowly work our way down the ship. We might have to climb a bit, but that should be the fastest way," I answered. Bakiel nodded and grabbed a arc welder. I made sure my blasters were loaded and pulled on my helmet. Ahsoka took out her lightsabers and put her white cloak inside of her backpack, revealing her old Clone Wars outfit.

And together, we delved into the darkness.

* * *

 _Sanctuary, inside the_ Chimera

 _6 ABY_ _ **(Got it right this time)**_

 _Day 297, 1545_

* * *

I clipped my grapple onto a convenient hook next to the door, and threw my foot against it. It split open easily: the lightsaber had done the trick. I looked over the abyss, then put one foot forward and dropped downwards.

" _Sabine, have you found anything?_ " Ahsoka asked through comms.

"Negative. I'm going down to Level Two," I responded.

" _Affirmative. I'll meet you there._ "

I deactivated the comm, took out Ezra's lightsaber, and began to cut through the thick door. It smelled something horrible, but I dealt with it. The metal glowed where it was split by the energy. Once it was cut, I kicked off the wall and swung myself into the door. It provided more resistance than I expected, but my momentum carried me through the door. I unclipped the grapple as I stood up.

The hallway beyond was lit, but still dark. I turned on my helmets night vision and continued down the corridor, which ended with an imposing-looking, reinforced steel door. I prepped the lightsaber. One of my hands trailed along the wall, leaving an indentation in the dust and grime that coated it. My slow, steady steps echoed down the eerie path.

I reached the door, igniting the lightsaber. I had to turn off my night vision, because the blue glow nearly blinded me. Deliberately, I drove the glowing blade into the door, sliding it in a circle motion before kicking it open violently.

The sudden sunlight blinded me for a moment, before something hit me from behind and I collapsed.

* * *

I don't know when I woke up, but when I did, my head felt heavy and it was in pain and I just generally felt horrible. I was inside some kind of cave, I could tell, but I had no idea where. All I saw was a person leaning over me, with dark, midnight blue hair and royally blue eyes…

 _Ezra_.

I sat up, realizing I didn't have my armor on. I did have my undersuit, so I decided that Ezra did have some decency.

"You're awake," Ezra stated. "Welcome to the land of the living once more, Sabine Wren."

"Ezra?" I breathed. "Is that you?"

"I mean, unless you know someone else named Ezra Bridger," he responded, smiling. He kneeled down. "Do you, my queen?"

"Wha-" I started to say, before Ezra lightly kissed my cheek. Nine years ago, I would have slapped him. Maybe even seven years ago. But that was then, and besides, it felt so… _right_. I had to stifle a scream of delight and assumed a angry face. "What exactly gave you the idea that you have the right to do that?"

"Uh, I don't know," Ezra said, putting one hand behind his head. "But you were muttering, ' _Ezra, I love you,_ ' in your sleep, so I just kinda…. Assumed."

 _Chit._ Time for a different approach. But what was still open?...

One thing was. I got up and looked at Ezra darkly, not saying anything but instead giving him the best Wren glare I could. Seven years ago, he would have withered under my stare, but now he just smirked knowingly. Endearingly, even. It infuriated and infatuated me at the same time. I couldn't decide if I wanted to kiss him or curse him.

I decided on kissing.

Ezra was only about a foot away from me, and he was also standing, so my approach was easy. I just moved as quickly as I could, wrapping my arms around Ezra's neck and letting my legs go entirely limp. Then, as I hung, I pulled Ezra into a deep kiss. I don't entirely recall what happened next, but several dozen things went through my head, most of them inappropriate and some of them just straight up lewd. Most of my memories were feelings, most of them a mixture of happiness, content, and love. I do remember that Ezra had his hands on my shoulder blades, but I don't remember _seeing_ anything. Probably had my eyes closed. I just know it felt so right.

I began to remember things maybe a minute later, when we broke the kiss. I felt… sated? No. Content? Not exactly. Happy?... Yes and no. Lustful? Maybe.

"So, Ezra," I asked, "What exactly kept you from coming home to Lothal for seven kriffing years?"

"Nothing, just some cartel bosses that put a massive bounty on my head. So much that everytime I go out and see daylight, I get shot at. Oh, and the fact that I had no weapon…." he responded, looking at me pointedly. I took out his lightsaber and handed it to him.

"You painted it." It was a statement, not a question.

"What did you expect? I got bored without you around to kark things up."

"And you painted your armor."

"See reason one."

"And redyed your hair. And cut it short."

I ran one hand through my now-purple hair. How would I explain it? "I guess I felt guilty about your disappearance. I… I wasn't taking it well. I guess you could call this penance?"

"You weren't taking it well? Explain, please."

"I, uh… ask Ketsu when we get back. I don't really want to talk about it."

That was true. For almost a month, I was freaking out every time I heard someone say, 'Ezra.' Usually, I would panic or start sobbing. Or both.

"Anyways, do you have a comm?" Ezra asked. "Are you here alone, for that matter?"

"Yes to the first question. No to the second. Ahsoka's with me. Hera and Jacen are coming soon, too."

"Jacen?"

Kriff, Ezra had missed a lot. "Hera's kid."

Ezra looked at me quizzically. "You mean Kanan and Hera…."

"Got it on? Yeah." I checked my chrono. 2132. Nine thirty-two PM in standard time. Chit, I was supposed to report in at 2130! I activated the comm.

Static. There was nothing to hear for about thirty seconds. I was about halfway ready to run out the door in search of her when the comm blazed to life.

"Sabine!" Ahsoka basically shouted. Ezra covered his ears and turned away. I adjusted the volume, then responded.

"Ahsoka. I found Ezra, but we lost the grappling hook. I'm going to bed down with him, then we'll get back up to you tomorrow. I'm sending you coordinates now," I said. "If you can, get Hera to pick us up."

I shut off the comm and laid down onto the rough stone floor of the cave. Ezra motioned to a sleeping bag. The meaning of the gesture was obvious. _You can take it._

"Share it?" I asked. Ezra shrugged. Playing impassive, apparently. I knew that inside, his heart was jumping with excitement. Then, he climbed into the bag. I wiggled in beside him, curling myself into a ball. He put one arm around my shoulders. In past years, I might have been weirded out by the contact, but I was twenty-eight now, and Ezra was twenty-six. It felt natural, now, to be held. I had only had this type of contact once before. A drunken fling. It wasn't something I talked about, nor something I enjoyed putting on paper.

I snuggled up to Ezra as close as I could, pushing myself into his chest. After that, I put one arm behind his back, then wrapped my other arm around him. Sighing happily, I rested my head against Ezra's arm and shut my eyes.


	3. Chapter 3: Taylir Ni Tight Ra Don't

Title Means: _Hold Me Tight, Hold Me Tight Or Don't_

 _ **To the Guest who told me that the war ended in 5 ABY: Yes, you are correct. However, Coruscant was captured in 6 ABY, while the Imperial Remnant controlled it. Basically, the Empire broke apart in 5 ABY but there was still a war going on, so instead of a war against the collective Empire it was just a whole bunch of wars against little bits of the Empire.**_

* * *

I woke up at exactly seven o'clock. I didn't move at all for a couple minutes, partly because the air was cold and partly because Ezra's arm made a really comfortable pillow. I sighed in content.

Eventually, I got out of the sleeping bag and found my armor, as well as the primitive kitchen that Ezra had somehow established. He had some ration packs left, and I was happy about that. He also had some fish. I guessed that he had a fishing pole somewhere. Apparently, I was wrong. He later told me that he just used the Force to get the fish out of the water.

I took one of the fish, skinned it, then set it on the pan to sizzle for a while as I scouted out the rations for some sort of nerf-bacon. Unconsciously, I began to sing quietly. It was a habit that I had picked up from living alone for so long, mostly because I found the quiet of early morning really, really boring.

Ezra stirred a little bit before getting up. He looked peaceful in his sleep. I didn't want to wake him just for the sake of making him lose his expression. It was rather cute. But, as I watched, he opened his eyes, I abruptly stopped singing.

"If you're gonna stop singing when I wake up, I'll just go back to sleep," Ezra said, smiling lightly. I chuckled. Seven years, and Ezra hadn't lost his sense of humor. Impressive.

"Alright, fine," I responded, continuing to cook. " _Softly 'round went Annalie, stepping circles in the sun…_ "

Ezra dragged himself out of the sleeping bag and looked at the food on the skillet imploringly. I waved a finger at him. "It's not done yet," I told him in a singsong voice. He frowned, which I found quite funny. Then, I picked up the pan and cut the fish meat into little blocks. After that, I added little strips of nerf-bacon to the side of each. Ezra took his plate readily from my hand and began to dig in, using a fork as a knife and spoon. He also didn't lose his manners, apparently.

"This is really good," Ezra said in between bites.

"I learned it from my mom. Needed to cook on my own," I explained. "Anyways, we need to get out of this cave. I've got a grappling hook that we can use. We can get out through the entrance that I came in through." I rubbed the back of my head. "How did I get knocked out?"

"Yeah…. That was me," Ezra said sheepishly. "Didn't realize it was you. I thought you were a bounty hunter or something."

I glared hard at Ezra. Shouldn't he have known that it was me? He shrugged, as if he heard my thoughts. Maybe he did. The Force could do a lot of weird things, and maybe reading minds was one of them. I didn't know.

I finished my meal and set the plate to the side, then went to where my armor was resting in a pile and slowly clipped it back on. Ezra grabbed his lightsaber. He was lucky. He only had to grab his lightsaber and he could go into a fight. I had to get my armor on, load my blasters, and calibrate everything. Made quick responses to stuff early in the morning rather annoying.

Ezra stood up and walked out of the cave, motioning for me to follow him. I pulled on my helmet and followed.

The door out of the cave was still open, but there were a couple of large rocks blocking it. I looked at Ezra. "Couldn't you just use the Force to get these rocks out of the way?"

"Ysalamir," Ezra responded, pointing to a small lizard sitting atop one boulder. My mouth formed an _o_. Ysalamir were Force-proof animals, basically. They had a little bubble around them that prevented any Force-Users from using the Force.

"Hang on," I said, drawing my pistol and aiming at the lizard. Ezra pushed my hand down.

"We can just go around," he said. I facepalmed. "Hey, it's your nature to look for a violent solution, Sabine."

"Shut up," I responded, laughing. He was right, though. My usual solution to homesickness or loneliness up in the tower was usually to find some scrap it and blow it to kingdom come. It was fun.

We held hands as we walked out of the cave. I looked up at the top of the cave, which was entirely smooth and had some paint on it. I smiled as I saw that it was a painting of the _Ghost_ crew. Not exactly well done, but it was kinda cute and sentimental.

Even in total isolation, Ezra kept himself connected to us.

* * *

I realized that getting out might be a bit hard when I realized that I had cut my grappling hook when I had swung in.

"Uh, do you have a spare?" Ezra asked awkwardly. I shook my head sadly. I had prepared for locked, reinforced and lightsaber-proof doors, as well as stormtroopers, Inquisitors, kark even _rancor attacks_. I had tools for breaching, fighting, rappelling and hacking.

But not a cut grappling hook.

"Well…" Ezra said sadly. "I guess there's nothing we can do…"

I nodded.

"Except for free-climb," Ezra added. I looked at him for a second with a quizzical expression before grinning crazily.

"And that's why I love you," I told him. He smiled.

"I know," Ezra responded, before jumping out of the cut door and grabbing a pole. "Well? Come on!"

I laughed and grabbed a handhold on the outside of the door. "Race ya," I said, before beginning my climb. I heard Ezra laugh as I ascended, reaching for handholds and footholds. I briefly thought about using my jetpack, but I left it as my "Ezra is beating me" contingency plan.

 _I might have to put it in use_ , I thought. Ezra was catching up quicker than I had anticipated. I accelerated, trying to keep myself in front of Ezra. He was fast. I suppose he had to be a good climber, because I doubted that that cave painting on the roof was just one trip. Maybe he was using the Force to bolster his ability.

Actually, now that I had thought about it, I realized that was highly likely. I looked back for a second, then redoubled my pace as I saw Ezra swarm up the wall like a energy-spider from Kessel. Impressive, if a bit scary.

I looked forward at the doorway, barely twenty meters away. Ezra grabbed at my foot, then across my back and got in front of me. I was about to activate my jetpack when he reached the door, swinging himself onto the threshold triumphantly. I grabbed a pole under it.

It came loose.

I swung with it, smashing into the wall and breaking my jetpack. Of _course_ it would break my jetpack. I could wrap it in bubble wrap with Force Stasis cast on it inside of a padded cell made of the fluffiest pillows, and it would still shatter at the slightest touch. Ezra stretched out his hand. The pole began to come loose of it's mounting, and I leapt off of it, grabbing Ezra's hand tight as I could.

"Don't…. Let… go…" Ezra demanded, looking down at me. I wasn't going to do that of my own volition, but gravity wanted me to die. I looked down for a moment and instantly regretted it. My head swam. Unconsciously, I put another hand on Ezra's, who strained to pull me up.

I put one hand on the precipice and hauled myself over the edge. Ezra fell backwards, and I flattened myself to the ground, shaking with fear. My stomach heaved several times, and I was sick with terror and possibly salmonella. Ezra looked at me for a second before he hugged me, whispering, "You're okay, Sabine. You're okay."

I recovered slowly, Ezra keeping me close the entire time. Eventually, I calmed down. "I'm okay. I'm okay," I repeated.

I broke away from Ezra for a second, before I cupped my hands to his beautiful face and kissed him. He returned it with vigor, and we stayed like that for about thirty seconds until neither one of us could keep it and we had to break apart just to breathe.

We both turned to the wide hallway, walking down it confidently. Neither one of us knew what lay ahead, but I didn't care and neither did Ezra.

It took me a second to realize that we were walking on the roof.

I guess this section had flipped over when it crashed. The entire place looked like it had been pretty kriffed up by the sudden contact with the ground. Even if it had hit water, it wouldn't have made a difference: the surface tension of the water would have destroyed the ship just as well as solid stone. Eventually, I found a familiar hallway. I guided Ezra to the first door I had cut, which thankfully exited out into sunlight. I looked up the cliff, which buzzed with climbers and SaR teams. They climbed up and down the cliff with various grapples.

"Well, looks like we're free-climbing again," I groaned. Ezra laughed and pointed to the elevator.

"They're climbing the cliff for kicks," Ezra said. Silently, I thanked Manda for the elevator. If I had to climb the cliff again, I was going to be rather… shall we say, irritated? Apprehensive? Frightened?

The elevator ride was a nice break from the apprehension that had gripped me for the last few minutes. No uncertain foot and handholds, just smooth durasteel railings to hold onto. It glided upwards beautifully and soundly. No erratic motion.

Ahsoka was waiting at the top of the lift, tapping her foot. She looked irritated. I didn't care in the slightest.

Hera was behind her, also looking rather angry. Ah, kark.


	4. Chapter 4: Mhi Solus Tome

The lift ground to a halt and I stepped off, leading Ezra. Jacen bounced around next to Hera, smiling at me like crazy. I waved to him, then led Ezra forward. "Ezra, this is Jacen. Jacen, this is Ezra."

"Hi, Ezra," Jacen said happily. He was six years old. A thought occurred to me: today was the day that I had lost Ezra. Now if that wasn't poetic justice, I don't know what was. Jacen was talking again. "Hi, Bean."

"Hi, Jacen," I responded, hugging the little guy tightly. He looked at Ezra with big questioning eyes next. Ezra waved at the little guy brightly, and Jacen waved back, barely keeping himself from bouncing in joy and excitement. I stepped back from him, letting Ezra and Jacen get to know each other. Hera looked at me darkly. I smiled back as she motioned for me to come over. Ahsoka stood next to her, glaring at me.

"What… in the seven Corellian Hells… were you thinking?" Hera asked through clenched teeth. "Why didn't you contact me? Ahsoka and I were going crazy trying to get to you!"

I showed Hera and Ahsoka my wrist. It had my comm on it, which was broken in half. I had shattered it unknowingly during my period of unconsciousness, and only found out when I woke up in Ezra's cave. "Broke my comm. Couldn't contact you guys. My grapple broke, so I couldn't climb out."

The second part was a bit of an exaggeration. I didn't find out until I had to make the climb out of the Star Destroyer, where Ezra I had to free-climb. Hera looked at me with a slightly-less-furious face, but it was obvious she was still cross. I was gonna have to make up with her later. Ahsoka still glared at me, but I didn't really care (check that: I didn't care at all). I had grown used to her being angry at me for karking up. My enjoyment of explosions was not deterred by years of sitting in a tower alone.

I looked back at Ezra and Jacen, who were talking with a lot of hand gestures. Jacen seemed in awe of Ezra, unsurprisingly. He was a Jedi, and the Jedi were pretty much extinct. Luke was one of the last few remaining. There were a few mentions of a kid named Raven who had received training and was traveling around, going to worlds where there were a lot of people who were badly hurt and giving them treatments, but actual facts about him were thin. Ahsoka was a Jedi, of course, but it was just her, Ezra, and Luke that I knew existed. Other than that… myth and legend.

Ezra used the Force to chuck a few rocks over the cliff. Jacen looked at him, wide-eyed, as he kept them in place and brought them back up. Then Jacen jumped around a bit in excitement. I laughed at his expression, mostly because it was cute beyond belief. His eyes reminded me of a tooka, and he seemed to glow with vitality.

Eventually, Jacen turned around and lead Ezra to Hera. "Ezra, this is my mommy. Mommy, this is Ezra," he said happily. "He's a Jedi!"

Hera looked at Ezra for a long moment. "I know," she said quietly, almost a whisper. "I know."

"Hera…" Ezra said. I knew the gist of what was going through his head: _I have so much to say, and no way to say it_. I knew because that's what I felt like when I found Ezra. Hera probably was thinking the same.

I had just let out my problems to Ezra through kissing him, but that didn't seem like Hera's style. We were just too different. For one, she was a mother, and I wasn't. Yet. I had plans for that, and they definitely involved Ezra. They were dependant on him, even.

It was quiet for a long moment. I looked between them for a long while before Hera hugged Ezra tightly, putting her head on his shoulder. Ezra did the same to her. It was unnaturally quiet for awhile, the air only having the sounds of Hera's quiet sobbing about her honorary son being brought home to her.

* * *

The spaceport was still bustling when we got back to take the ship home. I wasn't entirely surprised about that. Hera had left the _Ghost_ there and taken a speeder to the Destroyer instead, unlike Ahsoka and I, who took the T-6. We had left it behind on all the trips after the first one.

Ezra and Hera had not stopped talking once during the ride back. I guess neither Ezra nor I would have shut up either, but the whole "Sabine hanging over the perilous drop while Ezra tried to pull her up" incident kinda put a damper on conversation. Anyways, I just kept to myself for most of the ride, occasionally talking to Jacen. He was listening to Ezra and Hera as well.

Most of their talk was about various battles. Specifically, it was about battles that Ezra had missed. I'd list them, but I don't have enough storage or pages. The highlights were Scarif (fun battle, if I do say so myself) Yavin 4 (I was on Lothal) Hoth (Again, on Lothal) Endor (I was there for it, but I was one of the reinforcements to secure the moon) and Coruscant (Only part of a really early strike team sent for information. _Haar'chak._ ).

I led Ezra through the crowd on the streets, not letting go of him once. I didn't want to lose him again. The spaceport was just up ahead. I wanted to get off Sanctuary as soon as possible, let Ezra see the new Lothal. Capital City had been repaired and improved, and the tower was all white and beautiful and had been expanded, becoming a Command Center for the defense of Lothal in 5 ABY. Imperial Stormtroopers landed outside the city. We beat them back easily and managed to record the entire thing, with the Empire burning civilian homes and shooting just well enough that they might have been able to hit the broadside of a barn- _if_ they were lucky. Meanwhile, the Lothal Defense Force was saving civilians, taking down walkers, and blasting stormtroopers left, right, and center. In the skies, TIEs were being devastated by "Devastator" models of TIE Defenders that we had commandeered from the factories, with twice the effectiveness at only 1.5 times the cost. Massive propaganda value. Anyways, the area now has a hangar bay, so I'm staying there until the new house is built. Oh yeah, new house. Long story.

Ahsoka tapped my shoulder. "Shouldn't we check out of the Dingo?"

I didn't respond. Instead, I turned towards the inn. Again, I led Ezra towards the building, not trusting him to be on his own. Irrational, but to my mind, justified. The inn was about twenty feet away.

I led Ezra through the doorway and up the stairs to the rooms. He fought against my grip when we reached my room.

"Sabine, wait up," he said. I looked back at him, where Jacen and Hera were nowhere to be found. Ahsoka was just coming up the stairs. I had completely outpaced the rest of the team. Uh…. whoops?

"Sabine," Ahsoka said, looking at me. "You're a bit eager to get off this planet, aren't you?"

Kriff. She was right. "Yeah."

"Bine, Lothal isn't going anywhere, okay?" Ezra said. "We can wait."

"I know, but it's really annoying to just stay and wait," I responded.

"Yeah, well, hurry up and wait," Ahsoka said, turning around to go and find Hera and Jacen. I shrugged and entered my room, bringing Ezra with me. I was glad that the room had a two-person bed, because Ezra was back and I had seven years of loneliness to make up with him. I was going to tell him I loved him just after the liberation of Lothal. Then… well, you know what happened.

I lay back on the bed, kicking my shoes off and taking off my armor piece by piece. Ezra flopped onto the soft covers a few minutes later, after going to the refresher. I grabbed a remote and turned on the HoloNet as I drew myself up next to him. Some cooking show was on. I flipped through channels, with the white walls of the room almost glowing with reflected light. Ezra put one arm around my shoulders. Seven years ago, I would have killed him for that. But, like he once said in one of my fantasies, " _That was then. This is now._ "

 _That was then_. So long ago, the Jedi and the Mandalorians had fought each other and destroyed Mandalore. Ever since then, we had been in a cold war. Mandalorians hate Jedi, Jedi hate us right back. Well, technically they don't _hate_ hate us, but they really, really don't like us, to the point where it borders on hate but isn't hate. _This is now._ Now, here I was. A full-blooded Mandalorian. Next to me? Jedi Knight Ezra Bridger, who would eventually repeat to me, _Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar'tome, mhi mi'dinui an, mhi bar'juri verde._ Twelve words that I had waited almost eight years for him to say, and now we were together again. I didn't know about him, but I had no intention of leaving him. Ever.

There's a reason that those words mean, _We are one when together, we are one when parted, we will share it all, we will raise warriors._

* * *

I don't know what woke me, exactly. I didn't _hear_ anything, so much as just _sense_ it, but something wasn't right. Quietly, I reached for one of my Westars, on a nightstand beside my bed. Ezra was awake, too. I touched him lightly, then turned his head in the direction of the doorway. He understood. I placed one hand on his chest to keep him from standing up.

The tension was nigh-unbearable as we waited. I had to consciously remind myself to breathe, and I'm fairly sure Ezra did too.

The door opened with it's customary metallic hiss. A tall, lizard-ish guy wearing a hood walked in like he owned the place. He was followed by two human guards, who lit the light in the room. It took me a few seconds to adjust to the sudden illumination.

"Mister Bridger," the reptile rasped, "You've got a lot of nerve showing your face 'round here again."

Ezra responded with a deadpan expression. "Look who's talking." I snorted. The hood hid the reptile's face.

"Kill Bridger, take the girl captive," the lizard ordered with his irritatingly self-karking-assured demeanor. The guards moved towards me. I sat up and laughed. Both guards looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was. I pointed to the helmet in the corner.

"Sabine Wren, New Republic, SpecForce Division Four, Fifth Regiment," I said. "New Republic Infiltrators. Your worst nightmare."

I grabbed my Westar pistols and pointed them at the two guards, with my fingers tight around the triggers. Ezra took out his lightsaber and ignited it, filling the room with an emerald glow. They kept their blasters pointed at me. And thus, a Correllian Standoff was born.

* * *

 ** _I'm probably ruining my dramatic ending with this note, but I just wanted to apologize for the unnaturally long wait in between chapters. Anyways, thanks for reading and (hopefully) being patient!_**

 _ **Oh, and MaybeImARebel, if you do not see my reference to you, I will be very, very disappointed.**_

 ** _-RebelliousWaffle_**


	5. Chapter 5: Could You Get Out Of My Room?

Five minutes.

Ten minutes.

This was getting annoying.

Fifteen minutes.

Twenty minutes.

Twenty-five minutes of tense boredom.

Twenty-seven minutes and fifteen seconds feels like a kriffing century in a standoff, especially when you've got your dream guy with you forever on one hand and slavery on the other. Of course, _after_ said twenty-seven minutes and fifteen seconds, all hell breaks loose _very_ quickly.

First, the lizard got bored somewhere around twenty-six minutes forty-seven seconds. He began to grate about how we couldn't have a Correllian Standoff for the next forty-eight hours. At twenty-seven minutes two seconds, he said the whole "We can't have a standoff for the next hour" speech.

"We won't," I responded, smirking. Ezra blasted the guards with a Force-Push, which sent all the guards flying into the walls. I readjusted my aim and shot the two guards with three-round bursts. They collapsed, still alive but out of the fight for now. Almost immediately, Ezra was all over the lizard, whacking him silly. That unlucky reptile was in over his head already, and I hadn't even joined in. He desperately tried to fight back against my blueberry, who was wearing no shirt. _Manda_ , he looked good. A third guard entered, so I bounced off the bed and landed down on him. He must have been too busy checking me out to put up a good defense, probably because I was wearing very little. Just a sports bra and some shorts. (If he was looking me over, it was all the more reason to kill him.) Anyways, I bashed his head in with two straight punches before standing and kicking him once. In the jaw.

 _Owch._

The lizard was no longer standing. Ezra had him on the ground. I ran to my nightstand and took out two rolls of surgical tape. Tossing one to Ezra, I bound the three guards, gagging them and securing their hands behind their backs. They would probably lose circulation like that. Too karking bad. After that, I dragged them inside and kept them against the wall.

Ezra tore off the lizard's hood, revealing him to be a Yinchorri. I muzzelled him with tape and tossed him against the wall, too. Roughly. Oh, and there was some shattered glass where I had put him. _Whoops!_ How sad.

Hera appeared at the door, looking cross again. "What are you two _doing?_ "

"Long story," Ezra said, shrugging while re-taping the lizard's feet. "Basically, this _di'kut_ ," (I told him a few _Mando'a_ insults) "was trying to kill me and enslave Sabine. So we knocked them out, bound and gagged them, then tossed them in a corner and we're gonna leave them there."

Simple, but it didn't do justice to how tense it had been in the room. Twenty-seven minutes fifteen seconds in a standoff where you could cut the tension with a vibroknife is enough to drive you stark raving mad.

"You're lucky you didn't wake Jacen."

"It would be hard to," I responded. The little guy was a hyper-sound sleeper.

"Not really," Hera responded. "He sleeps light in new places. In any case, why didn't you lock your door?"

"One of the guards had a lockpick," I answered. Hera cursed.

"How long until hotel security gets here?" Ezra asked. I held up five fingers, one for each minute.

"Three minutes to mobilize, one minute to get up here, five seconds to find our room, forty seconds to get in position for a breach, five to breach," I explained. Sure enough, five minutes later three uniformed rent-a-guards with Stinger pistols walked in. I knew they were Stinger pistols because they looked like they were from Naboo and they _freaking hurt_ when I got hit with one. But it wasn't a sharp, sudden pain like a normal wound from a blaster. No, it was a dull ache like someone punched me really hard and it bruised. More painful, though. It _was_ acid, after all.

Hera laughed when the guards questioned who had done this. "I'm wearing sleepwear and carrying no weapons. These two have blaster pistols and a lightsaber, and they're busy bringing four guys bound with surgical tape over to you. They also look like warriors and are certainly able to do this. So- and this is just a wild guess- they might have been the ones to do this, maybe?"

The guard attempted to slap Hera for that. She ducked and slapped back, making the guard stumble. Everyone laughed as that guard's face flushed red from embarrassment. Ezra, Hera, and I all traded a look. We were all thinking what that man didn't know: _You do_ _ **not**_ _mess with this Twi'lek._

Jacen appeared at the door to Hera's room, rubbing one eye tiredly. His eyes then widened at the three guards. He waddled over to Hera and asked her, "Mama, what going on?"

One guard had the stupid idea to ask who was Jacen's mother. I looked at him with pity in my eyes (I assume: I know that's how I felt), then pointed to Hera. He nodded. I guess the guy wasn't as stupid as I thought. Anyways, after a quick prisoner exchange, Ezra and I were twenty-five-thousand credits richer from the capture of two genocidal maniacs and one dangerous murderer, as well as a glimmerstym-dealing criminal kingpin. And, even better, we had basically gotten 25,000 for defending ourselves. When they told us this, both Ezra and I nearly fainted, then denied reward…

For exactly five seconds. Then, we graciously accepted.

The small bag that we got was somewhat heavy, so I assumed that the guards had put the credit chips in non-digitally. If I wasn't so happy about the money, I would have asked for it digitally, but it wasn't unbearable. I commented about the weight as we carted it back to the _Starhawk_.

Ezra smiled at me and said that we could give it back whenever I wanted. I shook my head. Too much money to throw away. I mean, I was getting a fairly substantial income from selling my paintings, and I still had the prize money from making " _The March To Restuss,_ " but who throws away free money?

We checked out of the _Dingo_ without any more complications. They seemed genuinely sad to see us go. I wasn't exactly happy either, but I missed Lothal now. Plus, Ezra hadn't seen the New Lothal. Lothal 2.0. Lothal Mark 2? Whatever it was called, it was way better than the old Lothal. Lothal First Edition. I've got to stop doing that. Capital City was repaired and expanded now, with the lives of the citizens looking up. Unemployment was nonexistent. Ezra would be happy, I hoped.

There were only two cabins inside the T-6. Ahsoka looked at me and shrugged. She was still taking her own cabin. I didn't really care; I was staying with Ezra. If he went with Hera on the _Ghost_ , I would go too. If he went on the T-6, he was staying in my cabin.

He went with the _Ghost_. Ahsoka looked sad when I said I was going with him. Oh well.

"Besides, you and Lux need some time together," I said, smiling like a loon. Ahsoka blushed deep, her montrals darkening. I somehow kept myself from laughing. "Just go to Onderon, okay? Stay there for a while. I talked with Lux, and he's dying of loneliness."

Ahsoka feigned reluctance, but capitulated. "Okay, fine."

"Good. Get going." I clapped Ahsoka on the back and turned towards the _Ghost_. Jacen was running up the ramp, with Hera and Ezra close behind. Ezra was slightly ahead of Hera, but as I watched, she grabbed his shoulder and hauled him backwards, using him as an anchor to throw herself past Ezra. She made it up the ramp second, Ezra fourth. Why fourth? Because I joined in. I used my vambraces to tie his feet together, then sprinted past him while he struggled on the ground. Eventually, he got free and walked across the ramp, casting me a withering glare as I leaned against the wall. I tapped the button to close the boarding ramp before I entered my room.

 _Manda_ , it felt good to be back. Of course, Hera had probably changed my room, repainted it, made it a bit more suitable for a child. I didn't care. Paint was replaceable, after all, and my material possessions were long gone from the _Ghost_. I left them behind at the tower. I hit the button to enter my room.

I caught my breath. The room felt different now. But what had changed?

I realized what had changed.

Nothing had changed.

 _ **Nothing.**_

No new paint. No new additions. No new bed-covers, even. It was…. Eerie. I expected it to be different than when I had left. But it was the same. It was scary, in a way.

Ezra walked in behind me, putting his pack down on the floor. I followed him in happily. Jacen came tottering in and began speaking to Ezra. Hera was at the door. I got up and walked over to her.

"There's a spare room for Ezra if he gets you mad," Hera said. I shrugged.

"He hasn't made me mad yet."

"Even so, keep it in mind. Men have a habit of annoying us. I know Kanan annoyed me, at least," Hera joked, shrugging. I nodded.

"And everyone knows that Ezra can annoy me," I responded. Hera laughed. Ezra looked up at me before being drawn back into conversation with Jacen. He levitated a small stack of cards in the air, waving them around a little bit while Jacen squealed with excitement. "Are you gonna let Ezra train Jacen? Luke said he was strong with the Force."

Hera's expression darkened a little. "The Force took Kanan from me. I don't want Jacen taken from me as well."

"He won't be, Hera. Ezra will train him right. Besides, without training, Jacen will be even more vulnerable."

"I know. I'm going to let Ezra train him. But I don't like it."

"You don't have to," I said. "Anyways, happier topics?"

"Sunshine, rainbows, and loth-cats," Hera suggested, making me laugh. I continued to watch Ezra and Jacen. "Anyways," Hera asked, "Should we get going?"

"Yeah. Ahsoka already left. Nothing's keeping us here, and I want to show Ezra Lothal again," I responded. "Do you think he'll recognize it still?"

"It's his home planet, Sabine," Hera answered. "I've been away from Ryloth for five years, and yet nothing seems to have changed. He'll recognize it."

I turned to Hera once more. "Well, let's get going and find out!"

An hour later, Ezra lay down on the top bunk. I looked up at him, then pulled him down. He crashed to the ground. "Oww!"

"Well, if you hadn't taken my bunk, you wouldn't be in pain," I drawled. "Top bunk is _mine_ , Bridger."

"Hey, I used it before!" Ezra said defensively as I hoisted myself up onto the bunk. He continued to stand, glaring at me. I smiled back.

"Well, that was then and this is now."

I waited as Ezra still stubbornly stood. He still had defiance in him. Good. I liked that. As long as he didn't try to own me, I had no qualms with letting him get his way. As long as it had an upside for me, of course.

"And, if you don't irritate me, maybe I'll let you sleep next to me," I added, as a sort of a clincher.

"Compromise?" Ezra asked. I raised an eyebrow, but nodded for him to go ahead. Ezra continued, "How about we both sleep on the bottom bunk tonight, and then if I don't irritate you tonight, I'll sleep on the top bunk with you."

I gave him a quizzical look for a second, then accepted and dropped down. "Oritsir gar, Ezra. Gar ratiin parjir ni jaon," I muttered. (It translates to "Curse you, Ezra. You always win me over.) I thought that Ezra didn't know any Mando'a, save for what I had told him.

So imagine my surprise when he tells me, "Elek, ni kar'taylir." *****

I turned on him rapidly. "When did you learn _Mando'a_?"

"When you were on Krownest," Ezra answered with a shrug. "Took some lessons off of the Holonet. I hope my pronunciation is okay. Is it, cyar'ika?"

My heart began to try and escape my ribcage by going into my throat. "C-cyar-cyar'ika?"

"Of course, Sabine. You are my cyar'ika. You know that."

I wrapped my arms around Ezra's neck. "Ezra… you have no idea how much that means to me."

 ***It means: Yes, I know.**

 **Also, if I ever forget to add a English translation of** _ **Mando'a,**_ **look up a Mando'a-English translator.**

 **-** _ **RebelliousWaffle**_


	6. Chapter 6: My Home, Plus One

"Ezra?"

"Why can't I see anything?"

"Because I blindfolded you. Now, tell me: which do you prefer: a bedroom, or a living room?"

"Um…"

"Just choose. This is vital."

"I guess… bedroom?"

"Okay, that saves some time." I slowly unknotted Ezra's blindfold, letting him look around his new-and-improved home. The Lothal Defense Center had been moved to a more permanent headquarters nearby, but left behind all of the home improvements as a token of goodwill. Such improvements included new living quarters.

The walls of the house were all white. Inside the bedroom, there were two nightstands, both looking exactly the same as the other. The bed was a queen-size, and there was a entire wall taken up by just some one-way glass, so Ezra and I could look out without others looking in. Another wall had been converted entirely into a bookshelf, with both archaic leather-bound books and digitized ones. There were lamps built into the ceiling, and air conditioning. (I had specifically asked for that; Lothal's summer was _brutal_.)

"Sabine…" Ezra said, at a loss for words. He ran one hand over the sheets of the bed. "Wha…"

"The Lothal government refurbished the tower, partially at my request," I stated. Ezra looked at me quizzically.

"How many favors did you call in?"

"Just… ah…" I started counting on my fingers, more to be funny than anything else. "Thirty-seven?"

Ezra rolled his eyes. I decided not to comment again, instead getting up off the bed and letting Ezra observe. I walked over to the small door out of the room, entering the living room. It had a large, cushion-y couch on it, so I flopped into that. Ezra walked out numbly, almost missing me as I melted into the couch. Once more, the room was white, but only because I wanted Ezra's opinion on what color it should be. Again, there was one-way glass that allowed us to see out, but didn't allow others to see in. I liked privacy. There was a large archway into the kitchen, which was all newly polished and shining. I took Ezra there, showing him all the cupboards and cabinets and such. I was familiar with them, but Ezra was in over his head. Next, I went over the living room in greater detail, because I'm that irrational type of person that will skip a room. Plus, the turbolift was accessed from a door there. After that, I showed him the door to the refresher and kinda hurried away from it. After that, the balcony. Not much there. Finally, I went back to the living room, leaving Ezra behind to explore by himself. There was a small table in front of the couch, with a holoscreen on the opposite wall from the couch, facing it. Ezra sat down on the couch next to me. He asked, "You got people to do all this?"

"Yup."

"Free of charge?"

"Nope."

"How much?"

"Twenty-thousand."

"As a whole?"

"For the living quarters, yes."

"That's cheap."

"I know."

"How much for the entire tower?"

"Seventy."

"Thousand?"

"Correct."

"That's…. not cheap."

"We got a permanent landing pad, Ezra."

"Nevermind. That is cheap."

I laughed. Then, as Ezra put his arm around me, I softly cooed, "Do you like our home?"

"Yeah, 'Bine. I do. I really do," Ezra answered, making my heart jump a little. I smiled.

"It's probably the best on Lothal. Even Ryder was envious."

"We should probably try and get him a better house."

"We do have the credits. Like, almost five million of them."

Ezra blacked out.

I freaked out for a second, then realized what had happened. Slowly, trying not to wake him, I dragged him outside. Then, I went to the kitchen with a small bucket, filling it with ice water. Then, I dragged it back out and threw the water on Ezra.

His irritation was immediate, vocal, and colorful enough that I'm not writing it here, no matter how much you ask, Mira.

I was laughing the entire time as Ezra yelled at me. He did seem to have an amazingly diverse vocabulary of profanity. Eventually, we calmed down.

"Sabine, can you at least get me a towel?" Ezra asked. I did as he requested; I owed it to him. He wrapped it around himself. "I'm not sure if I still love you."

I was horrified at that thought, but I hid it. Instead, I said, "Yes, you do."

Ezra looked at me seriously before responding, hanging his head. "Yeah, I do."

A feeling of intense relief coursed through my body. Ezra stood up, leaning on the railing. I stood next to him. The sun burned brightly in the blue sky. Lothal had been so vastly improved now, and Capital City looked like a beautiful gem in the distance. The new suburbs sat prettily on the outskirts. I sighed happily. "So, Ezra… do you like it?"

Ezra gazed at me for a few seconds. "Yeah. I do. I don't know how you did it, but… I do."

"All of Lothal did it, Ezra. All of Lothal."

"I meant how you convinced them to expand, and funded them, and such."

"They were expanding before the Empire arrived. Now, they want to finish what they started," I explained. "You never wondered why there were so many unfinished buildings?"

"Never once," Ezra responded. "Honestly, I usually had other things on my mind. Not dying was usually pretty high on the list."

"Yeah, living is usually pretty high on my list of _Things I Like_ ," I said.

"Am I number one?" Ezra asked cheekily.

"That's classified," I responded smoothly. Ezra looked down, making a fake sad face. I looked back out over Capital, finding a small building with a sizeable awning on one of the streets. It was a little restaurant called _EuroFood_. It was my favorite restaurant on Lothal, because the food was good, the people were nice, and the service was (relatively) quick. "Hey, Ezra, do you want a tour of Capital City?"

"Tomorrow, _cyar'ika_. I'm only now adjusting to the new tower."

Understandable. He had been living in a cave for the past seven years. Finding his childhood home completely redone and his city rebuilt and improved must have been a lot for him to take in.

"Alright. Should I make dinner?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," I responded, just before I saw a speeder coming towards the tower. "Actually, I need to do something real quick. Can you make dinner instead?"

Ezra shrugged. "Sure."

I walked into the turbolift and hit the button to go down to the bottom. This had happened about a thousand times over the years, and last time I had sworn that if that little seductive son of a [Censored] [Censored] [Redacted] [Classified] [Inappropriate] [Censored] [NoWayYou'reSeeingThat] [Censored] [Redacted] pencil-[Nope] karking [Classified]graphing _chakaar aruetii besom demagolka di'kut dinii hut'uun ori'jagyc_ came back I was going to karking blast his crotch off with a high-powered slugthrower, while pinning him to the ground and slowly gouging his eyes out with a [Censored] combat knife after I cut off his kriffing ears.

Not to put too fine a point on it.

Basically, this was the guy that I mentioned around Chapter Two: remember the "drunken fling"? Again, this is painful for me to write. Basically, this guy, named Josh, had taken advantage of my intoxication, taken me to his apartment, and threatened me into… well, you can connect the dots. Now, I kept a blaster by my side at all times when I was dealing with this prick.

" _Nar'sheb!_ (Screw off!)" I called as Josh pulled up, getting off his speeder with his casual overly-cocky swagger.

"Ah, ze yittle Mandayorian haz some spice in her, ja," Josh responded.

"Ja, and this "yittle Mandayorian" has a threat to make good on!" I mocked, pulling a blaster and setting it on stun. "Don't worry, this will only hurt you as much as you hurt me, you [Censored] [Censored] [Nope] [Redacted]!"

I loved the way his eyes widened, just before he turned and chucked a knife straight past my head. It nicked a bit of my ear, drawing blood. I laughed. He threw two more knives. I dodged, feeling cut the air as they passed. Again, I laughed, calling in a voice as demeaning as I could make it, "Josh… is that all you got?"

"Noo, I have poizon too," Josh called back, chucking another knife. The pause made me let my guard down, and the knife hit me in the abdomen. It hurt, too- I could tell it was poisoned. Immediately, my vision began to swim. I had a vague idea of what Josh would probably do to me, what I'd wake up to, and it wasn't pretty. Somehow, I forced myself to stay standing, drawing my other blaster and firing. It was still set on lethal. I didn't care. I heard a cry of pain and I knew I had hit Josh. I heard a lightsaber ignite, but it took a fair few seconds before I realized that it was Ezra. Then, I heard a massive cry of pain, a few seconds later a pair of strong hands clasped my arms, I heard some sirens, then I blacked out.

* * *

 ** _The Mando'a without the translation, just after all the Censored marks, is just a bunch of insults: chakaar is like a corpse robber or a petty thief, aruetii is traitor, besom is a jerk, demagolka is a war criminal (not always applied directly to war criminals. Look it up) , di'kut is a idiot, dinii is a lunatic, hut'uun is a coward, ori'jagyc is a bully. Anyways, hope you enjoyed! : )_**

 ** _Oh, and Guest: It's fanfiction. Searching for a missing person could totally take two years. And since it's fanfiction, I can violate writer personalities all I want. Filoni doesn't matter all that much to me when I write._**

 ** _UPDATE: This is Sabine's journal of sorts. I've got a finale in mind, so you'll see why I wrote it this way._**

 ** _-RebelliousWaffle_**


	7. Chapter 7: Bad Memories

_**As I said at the end of the last chapter, this is Sabine's journal. She is aware of being in the story because she's writing it. Sorry to those confused. I'm using this to set up my finale. Trust me. (Blind trust would be best, but reluctant trust is still fine.)**_

 _ **Another thing (Please don't hate me for this): This chapter is mostly driven by the sad feels of my favorite author taking down all their stories. I would rant about it, but I don't want anyone to hate me for doing that. Just, Miss Author-that-I-will-not-mention-by-name-for-the-sake-of-discretion (I know you're reading this. You know who you are)… put them back? Please? Just say that they won't be updated. I'll be here for you.**_

* * *

I hate hospitals. Triage centers? Great! Field hospitals? No problem! Combat medicine? Fantastic. Medical airspeeders? Can't live without 'em.

Hospitals? Get me out.

I don't care how badly I'm injured: unless I'm comatose, I don't want to be in a hospital. They give me the creeps. The doctors at Lothal's hospital know me, though, so they usually have some sort of sedative ready, or if they don't they treat me outside.

Judging from the sterile walls, the doctors with masks on, and a watery feeling throughout my body, I guessed that I wasn't being treated outside. Apparently, I was in a specialized med unit for poison. One of the doctors said something about it being three days after my poisoning. That gave me a small freak-out, so the doctors gave me a sedative and knocked me out for another day. I just remember inky blackness for most of this time, but apparently I was muttering a lot, confessed my love to Ezra several dozen times, and (I kid you not) started to muse about being just a normal person with normal parents and a normal boyfriend. Crazy, right?

 _Yaaaay_.

Thankfully, by the next day, the poison was out of my system, so I got to go back to the tower, where Ezra was waiting.

He was less than happy about my experience.

"Why didn't you tell me about that guy?" he asked. I could tell he was keeping his anger at me only barely under control.

"Because we've only been together for four days!" I exclaimed. "We've only been on Lothal for one!"

"That doesn't mean that you should just hide this from me, Sabine!" Ezra responded. Then, he turned super calm and serious. "Let me help you. Tell me what happened."

I must have looked like he hit me. "I… don't want to talk about it."

Ezra put one hand on my shoulder and led me over to the couch. "Sabine, I'm not gonna tell anyone else. Let me help you, _cyar'ika_."

I sat down on the couch, pulling one hand along the top. Ezra looked at me desperately. "Talk to me."

It was silent for a long, long time before I spoke. It was a painful accident for me, but I had to share it at some point.

"I was sitting in a bar with a Coruscanti Bombay in one hand and unrelenting depression in the other. Slowly, I stood up, taking my glass with me. I was completely drunk, and as I went out the door and started walking home.

"There was one guy standing outside my door, and I mistook that prick for you, Ezra. I laughed like a loon, hugging... Josh tightly. I… I actually kissed the guy, Ezra. That's my biggest regret in the past ten years.

And we were making out for the entire turbolift ride, and… well, we went to the bedroom first… just use your imagination for the rest. I'm not… I don't want to… I don't want to talk about it anymore."

"Sabine…" Ezra said, putting one arm around my shoulders. "You should have told me."

"You wouldn't believe it if I had said it in the past week," I responded.

"I know you wouldn't lie to me."

"What about when you left? For all those years that you were in my life, I was telling you I felt nothing towards you. That's lying."

"You told me because that's what you were telling yourself."

Ezra's words hit me like a wrecking ball. He was right. That was what I was telling myself; I had only realized that I liked- no, loved- him when he was on the kriffing _Chimaera_ , about to leave for the next seven years. If only- no. The past was the past, and unless I magically got a time machine, I wasn't going to change it. Besides, changing the past would have crazy effects on the future, and I didn't want that.

I was rapidly approaching my breaking point. "Hold me."

"Always."

I pressed myself against Ezra, shoving my face into his chest. Once more, I was teetering on the edge of breaking.

I broke.

I felt Ezra patting my back. Dimly, I registered crying before realizing it was me. Ezra was whispering to me. "It's okay. Ssh, it's okay."

I continued crying for the next hour, finding myself sitting on Ezra's lap afterwards. I looked up at him through red-rimmed eyes. Then, I whispered, "Thank you."

"Always, cyar'ika. I'm here for you. After all, _mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar'tome_."

I weakly punched his arm. He had just said _we are one when together, we are one when parted_. "You are _such_ a corny romantic."

"And you love me for it."

"Shut up and kiss me."

"Yes, _commander_."

"Captain."

"Well, you've been demoted."

I mocked horror. "Oh, anything but _that_!"

"Yes," Ezra said, very seriously. "That."

"Well, as long as you're here, I can live with losing my security clearance."

"Oh, and _I'm_ the corny romantic?"

"Shut up and kiss me, _Lieutenant_ ," I ordered. Ezra laughed before compiling. As I might have said before, it was probably the most pleasurable feeling that I had ever felt up until that point.


	8. Chapter 8: Discovered, A Briikase

A day later, Ezra and I visited Hera, over on the other side of Lothal. We rang the doorbell, and Jacen answered.

"Hi, Bean! Hi, Ezra!" the little guy said in his six-year-old babble. I smiled.

"Hi, Jacen!" I responded, crouching and waving at him. "Is your mom home?"

"Yeah, she is. She's in her quiet room. Do you want me to get her?"

"No," I said. We'll go see her."

"Alright. C'mon, I'll show you the way!"

Jacen took off immediately, dashing through the hallways. I took Ezra's hand and dragged him after the race-car masquerading as Jacen Syndulla. In less than thirty seconds, we were standing outside the half-wood-half-metal door to Hera's quiet room.

Inside, there were hundreds of names on the wall, each under an inscription at the top, like, "Coruscant, Sector 51-C."

Hera looked up from her desk. "Sabine. Ezra."

"Hi, Hera," I said, knowing full well what she was doing. Ezra didn't, and as he let his hand slide over a plate with "Lothal," at the top, I took a closer look at what she was doing.

"Kanan Jarrus, Mira Bridger, Ephraim Bridger… Ezra Bridger?" Ezra muttered.

"It's a list of all those killed in action on Lothal," Hera answered. "We assumed you were K.I.A as well. I'll have to scrub that name out."

Ezra sat down on the floor. "Why is this room here?"

"I memorize all the names of the soldiers killed on ops I ran or planned. It's my way of helping myself come to terms with those I've lost," Hera said. "Right now, I'm trying to figure out what went wrong on one op. Our entire squad is missing in action."

"Where?" Ezra asked, letting one hand stray to his lightsaber. I read over Hera's shoulder.

"The identity of the planet is classified, but it looks quite a bit like Cardia on a map," I said with a deadpan tone.

"I think it's _actually_ Corellia," Ezra responded, matching my tone of voice.

"Wherever it is, the problem with the op is that you left yourself open to a counterattack when you planned the exfil. Did your men have E&E training?" I asked, using the Army shorthand for Escape and Evasion training.

"They're Alliance Special Forces. Of course they do," Hera said. "Hal Mireled is a survivalist, Mika Wren is a Mandalorian, Lauren Pierce is an aspiring hunter, and Prentice Guu is a tracker."

"You drafted a Mandalorian into a Special Forces team?" I asked.

"As a commander," Hera responded.

"Good."

"Well, I'll leave the SaR team to do their job," Hera said, getting up from her desk. "In the meantime, I believe I have something to ask you two. Come with me."

Hera walked out the door and up a flight of stairs, Ezra and I following behind her. Her house was quite posh, most of it being made from high-quality materials. I'm not entirely sure how she got the money, but, as Mother used to say, "Don't look a gift shaak in the mouth." In the dining room, she took out a bowl, filled it with some crackers, and put it in the middle of the table.

"So, question one. How long have you two been together?"

Her opener made my cheeks heat up a bit. I looked at Ezra awkwardly. He looked back with an expression of embarrassment. Somehow, I stuttered out, "Uh, I w-wouldn't say we're _together_ , exactly, we're friends… but I'm not sure were together… Like, we're friends, but I… we're not, like, together-together..."

"Y-yeah, I'm…. I mean, we're not…" Ezra stammered. His face was a light shade of pink. I'm not sure why it was so hard to say we were a couple to the world.

"You think I can't see what's going on between you two?" Hera asked with an inscrutable face. "You're obviously in love. I know you two already kissed each other- the way you two look at each other is like a giant glowing sign with two arrows pointing to both of you and saying "In Love!""

I blushed deeper. My face was probably red as a beet. "Uh… Maybe…. A week? I'm not sure…" I said. Ezra just nodded.

"Now, are you two planning to get married and such, or are you just going to ignore your feelings like you did for four years?" Hera inquired.

"Maybe? Probably…" I said, probably sounding embarrassed as all heck. Hera smiled.

"Good. Have you two already gotten fully intimate?" Hera asked next, making my face feel like it was going to melt off. Ezra's face was a deep, deep shade of red. A rather pretty shade, too; it was gonna be my new hair color.

"No!" I shouted. "No, no no no no. No we have not." For some reason, the thought horrified me at the time. Ezra just shook his head to respond.

"Okay. Good to know. I don't need to ask you anything else, so I'll make lunch," Hera responded. "Do either of you want to help?"

I nodded. "I'll help."

"I'll go play with Jacen, then," Ezra said, pushing his chair back so he could get up and leave. I followed Hera to the kitchen, where she took out a frying pan.

"Have you ever made Cardian Lamb Kebabs?" Hera asked. I nodded. I opened one wooden cabinet and took out a small green bottle of lemon juice. Hera grabbed a white plaster bowl and put in two pieces of lamb meat, which she put on a cutting board and minced with precise strikes of the silver kitchen knife. Then, I took two teaspoons of lemon juice and poured them into a bowl. Hera then put the meat in. After that, we took out a small bottle of cooking oil and put it in another bowl, this time with some green Cardian chillies, as well as garlic, ginger, some crushed peppercorns from Manaan, cumin, some more lemon juice, turmeric powder, and salt. We took that concoction and put it in a food processor, turning it into a paste, which we stirred in a bowl with coriander. Next, we put the mince and the paste in a bowl. After that, we wet our hands, then we skewered the meat into a couple of long sausages, and then we pressed the meat to the skewers gently, rotating them around slowly. After that, we brushed them each with cooking oil, then grilled them for five minutes. The scent was amazing. Finally, we put them on plates, which we then put on a cardboard-and-wood carrier (like a basket) and took them outside.

Ezra and Jacen appeared almost immediately. I motioned to the food, which we had set out on a glass table. It looked very… enticing. "Lunch is ready, boys."

We all sat around the table while Hera passed out the kebabs. Jacen arced an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"Cardian Lamb Kebabs," Hera responded sweetly. "They taste really good."

"I agree," I said, in unison with Ezra. Immediately, we looked at each other, blushing. We were sitting next to each other. Warily, Jacen took a small bite of the kebab, then took a larger bite, after which he hungrily began to devour the meat.

"I like it," he said in between bites. Hera smiled.

"Glad you like it," she responded. Ezra looked at me, then Hera, then back to me.

"You guys made this? Because this tastes like heaven," he asked. I clasped his hand under the table.

"Yeah, we did," I said. Was that a tint of love in my voice?

"Hera did all the work, didn't she?" Ezra teased.

"No," Hera said. "Sabine did about 25% of the work."

"Ow. I'm hurt."

"Hey, think of it this way: I did 0% of the work," Ezra joked.

"You little turd," Jacen commented. Ezra and I laughed; Hera looked insulted.

"Jacen! Where did you learn that word?"

"From me," Ezra said, smiling sheepishly. "We were playing with the Force, and Jacen told Chopper to lock his legs down when I was lifting him."

I immediately flashed back to Ezra's first couple days. "Deja vu much?"

"Yup," Ezra responded, smiling widely. "That was a good prank."

"I've done better," I said nonchalantly. Hera, Jacen, and Ezra all laughed. They all knew my long, long history of larks, like the time I switched sunblock with water. It was totally worth it, both for the look of confusion on Hera's face and the look of joy on Jacen's.

"So can we play some more after lunch?" Jacen asked peppily. He had a look of perpetual excitement on his cute little face.

"Sure!" I responded. He smiled even wider. "What are we gonna play?"

"I'll tell you after," Jacen said. Immediately, I knew the game: Tag. I beat him to the punch. I looked at everybody's plates and saw no food on them. As such, we were finished with luncheon.

"Okay, well… _Tag!_ You're it, Jacen!" I shouted, pushing my chair back, standing up, and tagging Jacen lightly with my hand. I sprinted about five yards before I was frozen in place. Then, I was turned around to see Ezra standing right in front of me, wagging his finger, one of his adorable locks of hair falling over his eyes. _Sigh..._

 _Oookay_ , maybe I was a little…. obsessed.

"Jacen, if you will?" Ezra asked. The little guy waddled up, tapped me with one finger, then ran inside. Hera took the dishes from the table, then followed Jacen inside. As soon as the door closed, Ezra kissed me, then released the Force Stasis.

"You know, if you had unfrozen me _before_ you kissed me, I would have been able to do the same to you," I said, crossing my arms, trying to look as petulant as I could. Ezra put one hand on my forearm and gently pushed it down.

"Then do it now," Ezra said flirtatiously. I smirked, then jumped up and wrapped my legs around his, kind of like a fishhook. If he felt pain from my Beskar plating hitting him, he didn't show it. I put one arm around his neck and the other one under his arm. He put both of his arms on my back as we made out for a minute, before we heard the door open and a triumphant, "I knew it!"

Ezra and I unwound ourselves from each other and turned to find Hera standing in the doorway, a goofy smile on her face. "Took you two long enough."

"You could say that, yeah," I responded.

"Well, Jacen is getting bored in his hiding spot, and if he finds you two making out you will _never hear the end of it_."

* * *

 ** _Well, it took me maybe an hour to come up with this pure, unabashed fluff. Started typing, and a couple of hours later? This happens. I think it's a good thing._**

 ** _To all the people that couldn't find Chapter 8, that's because it's now Chapter 7. I took down a chapter._**

 ** _Anyways, hope you enjoyed! Next chapter, we (well, you- I've already seen it in my mind) get to see more of our (least) favorite character, as well as a setup for some action. YAY! More shooty-shooty-bang-bang scenes!_**

 ** _I'm rambling. I'll shut up now- can't give too much away! : )_**

 ** _-RebelliousWaffle_**


	9. Chapter 9: Black Op: Hidden Guardian

I lounged on the couch back at home, sliding one hand along the grey cushions. I didn't have on my armor, mostly because I was too lazy to put it on. I still had my weapons belt, of course. I am a Mandalorian.

Ezra walked in, holding two mugs of steaming caf. I smiled, took my cup and nodded my thanks.

"You're welcome," Ezra said, turning on the holoscreen and flicking through the channels.

" _How to build-"_

" _Wheel of-"_

" _He passes the ball-"_

" _Criminal Josh-"_

"Wait, hang on," I said, sitting up and taking a sip of my caf. "Go back one channel."

"Why?"

"Humor me."

" _Witnesses have identified the assailant as a male, named Josh Vanderbield. They say he was involved with the bombing, which killed twenty-four."_

Over the next few seconds, I dropped my jaw to the floor, picked it back up, took out one of my pistols, loaded and cocked it, put it back in my holster, attempted and failed to put out a white hot flame of rage in my chest, loaded and cocked my other pistol, and made up my mind about what Ezra and I were going to do next.

"We're killing that slithering _demagolka_ _chakaar chaavla_ the next kriffing time we see him," I fumed. Ezra looked at me, both alarmed by my rage and unsurprised by it.

"Sabine, I understand your anger, but you need to control it, okay?" Ezra said carefully. I eyed him venomously.

"You don't know him like I do, Ezra. We need to put him in the ground."

"Sabine, you're right, and I'm not saying don't go after him. I'm saying _calm down and think_. We need to have a starting point. Let's check in with the police and see how we can help, okay? We need to make sure we have someone covering for us if things go haywire."

 _Haar'chak_. He was right. "Fine."

"Let's go down to the police station for now, 'Bine. Okay?"

"Okay. But I think we'd be better just asking for Hera's help."

"Or, we could ask for Hera's help, as well as the entire police force backing us up."

"Well, are we gonna do anything?" I asked, not excited with the idea of laying around on Monday anymore.

"Yeah. Let's get our gear on. We're going to the crime scene."

I smiled and walked to our room, taking my armor off of it's stand. I took off my shirt, ignoring Ezra's glance as I put on my bodysuit and attached the armor to it, one piece at a time. Looking over the left breastplate, I noticed a large gash on the paint. Well, it was high time for a respray anyways. I noticed a similar cut on the shoulder piece. Already, ideas were forming inside my artist's mind: A midnight-blue starbird on the shoulder, and another one on the breastpiece, but with a orange-red flame around it…

 _Time for that later,_ Dutiful Me told Artistic Me. _Right now you need to focus, Sabine Wren._

' _Kay, fine, but we're totally doing this later,_ Artist Me retorted, sounding like a sixteen-year-old girl. I pulled on my helmet, re-calibrating several sensors as I did it. The Heads-Up-Display (HUD) of my helmet lit up, scanning the the surrounding area and analyzing for any threats. Truly amazing, what my helmet could do. Anyways, a small red highlight appeared around Ezra's body, marking him as an enemy. Admittedly, my first reaction was close to panic until I realized that it was a simple targeting error. I keyed a few buttons and marked him as a friendly. Although, if he got too annoying, I could revert that on a moment's notice. I told him as much.

"I'll try not to agitate you too much, my lady," he responded smoothly. I felt a myself blush slightly at the honorific. _Wait, when did Ezra become a romantic?_

I pushed the thought away for now as I entered the turbolift, Ezra standing right beside me as we shot down through ten floors. Many of the Lothal Defense Center additions had been removed when the LDC switched to a official headquarters closer to the city. However, there were still several floors of surplus military-grade equipment, like scanners and comms, that hadn't been taken. And there was the hangar.

 _Attention, idiot. The hangar! You remember the week you spent on repainting the kriffin' thing? Maybe you should show it to the guy you did it for?_

I smirked at my own stupidity as I pushed the button for the hangar. The button lit up in the shape of an _H_. I think you can guess why. Anyways, Ezra saw me hit the button and raised an eyebrow, but when we descended to the subterranean area (Yes, we put the hangar underground. Think of it as an ambush pit, only instead of mounted machine blasters firing refined tibanna gas, it has mounted "gravity slings" [The name is self-explanatory: they use gravity to chuck stuff _reeeeeally fast_ ] throwing fighters and bombers.) and left the turbolift, I began to explain.

"So, about eleven years ago, I started to get really, really bored, because you weren't around to mess everything up. As usual, I painted, and I got bored with just walls and canvases, so I decided to try and… ah… expand my canvas, per se. So, Hera wouldn't let me paint the _Ghost,_ so… consider this a gift."

I led Ezra over to the side of the hangar, where the Gauntlet sat, gleaming. Just under the cockpit, I had painted a toothy mouth that I had gotten from a couple of paintjobs in a ancient history museum on Haruun Kal. I think the exhibit name was about a fighter plane called the P-40 Warhawk, back when the planet was divided into countries. It was used by a group of people called the "Americans," during an era called "World War Two." I don't know much about it. Anyways, I had taken the mouth from those fighters and put it onto the Gauntlet, then painted two diagonal lines along the bottom and top of the wings. The blue streaks dissolved into small blocks as they reached the back of the Gauntlet. Next to them, I had painted an amber starbird with a orange flame motif around it. The ship was actually coated mostly in silver, as a primer of sorts. It really highlighted the new colors that I had put on, like on the wingtips, where there were now bird feathers, painted in a ocean blue. An orange line ran down the main area, leading to the rear of the craft, where I had painted some talons on the sides of the entryway. The landing gear had also been turned into bird claws.

Ezra ran one hand along the ship's sleek lines. Along the bottom of the ship there were two grey lines, running from just under the nose of the ship to a spot near the landing gear, fading as they went along the hull. On either side of the cockpit, there were Alliance Starbirds. "Sabine… It's beautiful."

I smiled and leaned against the hull. "Thanks. This took me almost a week to paint."

"A well-spent week."

"Tn- Thn- Bleh, I can't speak. _Thank you._ "

"You're welcome, cyar'ika."

I smiled. "Do you want to take it to the LDC?"

"LDC?"

"Lothal Defense Corps. It's the police, but it's also the military. Very useful for combating terrorists."

"Terrorists?!" Ezra exclaimed.

"Mostly Imperial extremists. Easy to deal with. Let's go."

Ezra still looked to be in shock over my "Terrorist" comment. In truth, we had only faced one terrorist problem, and they were dealt with in quick order (Just before they managed to pull off a major terror attack) in a Black Operation codenamed 'Hidden Guardian.'

* * *

 _The LAAT touched down with barely a sound. I stepped off first, waving my hit squad forward. They were all Mandalorians, friends of mine from Clan Wren. Their armor was all done in dark green, as black was too dark and created too deep a shadow. I had covered my own armor in dark green as well, though I had a solvent that could remove it quickly._

 _We ghosted across the wheat field towards a complex of buildings that we knew held many, many enemies. This was child's play. Davide Wren, our demo expert, held a satchel of explosives, slung over his back that we would use to detonate the munitions that they held within the largest building. Lika Wren, our point girl, motioned that she saw an enemy._

 _Immediately, we crouched, Lika signaling that she saw them at 1 o'clock. Miloia took out her knife. I looked over in that direction and smirked under my helmet as Dilloi readied his sniper. I pushed it down lightly, shaking my head. Then, I whispered over the team comms, "Dilloi, you're on overwatch. Davide, Lika, you're on explosive duty. Miloia, you're with me. We're sanitizing the area and making sure these extremists aren't going to sleep tonight. We've got exactly two hours until dawn, so let's make this quick. Tagger isn't going to wait around forever."_

 _"No funny business, Davide, Lika," Dilloi teased. You could tell that both of them were glaring daggers at Dilloi. If looks could kill, we would have one K.I.A._

 _"Consider yourself lucky if you get through the next week alive," Davide threatened. Miloia chuckled. I waved us forward as we split into our groups, Davide and Lika sneaking off to the right, Dilloi taking up position on a convenient rock outcrop, Miloia and I making a very, very quiet beeline towards the guard we had seen earlier. It took fifteen minutes to sneak over, because we took no chances, assuming that each and every person in the camp knew exactly where we were going to go. I spotted him about five meters away from where he had been. Miloia took out her combat knife. It was big and mean and she wanted to use it bad. I knew why: just yesterday, her brother was strangled by an Imperial assassin. She had described the feeling as a white-hot rage._

 _I had felt similar rages to hers. Whenever I did, bad guys died._

 _I made the signal to kill the sentry. Miloa nodded, and I swear she was smiling crazily as she brought the knife across the sentries neck. She held back from eviscerating the poor sod, though. Kudos to her._

 _As Milioa dragged the body into the grass to hide it, I targeted another sentry. Coming up behind him, I stepped on a small twig and broke it._

 _Chit._

 _The sentry turned around, and I sprinted full-chat at him. He ducked and threw me. Kark, the little bugger knew judo. Once I realized that, I almost smiled: Judo versus Teras Kasi. Which would win?_

 _Plasma would. I took one jai'galaar from it's holster and brought it up in one fluid movement, blasting the sentry in the head. I wasn't concerned about noise; my blaster had a silencer. His didn't._

 _And, of course, because his didn't, it went off as he dropped it. Go freaking figure._

 _Alarms started to blare all across the camp/base/compound/whatever. I got on team comms just before the alarms went off. "Plan B."_

" _You mean the one where we just blow up everything and wipe out every hostile in the area?" Dilloi asked._

" _Do you know another?" Davide responded. I guess he was still shaken about the 'funny business' comment._

" _Yes. It's called 'retreat.'"_

" _We do not 'retreat.' We 'attack in a different direction,'" I growled. "Now start shooting things."_

" _Yes, ma'am!" Davide, Lika, and Dilloi answered. Miloa nodded and clicked the release on her blaster's silencer. I did the same. Across the compound, I heard a string of explosions as Davide and Lika detonated several (no, several_ _ **dozen**_ _) placed charges and set half of the compound on fire. That roused whoever was still asleep, and I swear I saw a couple nuclear detonators flying. In any case, I drew my blasters and ran into the middle of the camp, where several dozen former Imperials turned terrorists had E-11s in hand._

" _They're dead," I heard Lika say, just as I remembered she had 're-acquisition expert' (READ: Thief.) She had told me that she had gotten her hands on a machine blaster, and as I saw yellow plasma begin to tear apart troopers from one meter, I knew she wasn't lying. She already had seven kills as the remaining troopers scrambled for cover. I tagged two as they dove over my own cover. Idiots. Dilloi blasted three, their white armor making them terribly easy targets. I fired three times into a small building. Mark three kills for me._

 _Miloia threw one knife and took out another. Her first knife caught one trooper squarely in the crotch. I shot him as he lay writhing on the ground in pain, even if it was more to put him out of his misery more than anything else. Miloia's next knife stabbed a buckethead in the eye, killing him instantly, white armor rapidly turning red with blood. Quickly, Miloia retrieved her knife, just in time to kill the only remaining hostile. Whoops, sorry, that's Davide's kill._

" _Everybody okay?" I asked, right as another freaking Inquisitor tried to murder me. I heard a lightsaber ignite and moved to the side just as it whistled past my head, just a wee bit too close for comfort. I fired at the Inquisitor, who blocked. Lika took aim at the Inquisitor and held down the trigger of her LMG, just as I shouted, "No, DON'T!"_

 _All of her shots hit her. Thankfully, she dropped the gun after three of her shots got returned to their sender, but she was still nailed by fifteen rounds of superheated laser. Davide screamed, then tossed a smoke grenade, temporarily blinding the Inquisitor, but it was a temporary help. Miloia ran to my side and gave me a knife, which I graciously accepted because it would be a great help in attempting to separate this guy's life from his body. I pulled one pistol and fired, hitting the Big 'I' in the leg. Mister Sith kept coming, though, and I shoved Maloia out of the way just as a red blade attempted to split us in half, for the second time out of probably well over fifty. I dodged another swing as Dilloi tried to snipe the Inquisitor. No dice._

 _Davide slowly backed up towards Lika, no doubt to protect her. Mister Inquisitor raised his hand and Force-Choked him into unconsciousness, tossing him onto Lika unapologetically. A red blade scratched my arm, but I had too much adrenaline flowing through my veins to feel it. Maloia, however, was no so lucky. She yelped in pain as a lightsaber passed through her arm, cutting it, then screamed in pure agony as it cut deeper. I shuddered. Just over an hour and a half had passed, between us getting to the AO (Area of Operations) and setting the explosives, as well as wiping out the sentries. I just needed to survive for… seven minutes. Chit. Dilloi tossed a small smoke grenade and then a normal grenade, neither of which did anything to the Big I._

 _Dilloi tossed me a knife. I nodded my thanks and activated the 'laser blade' function, which made the blade able to withstand a lightsaber. Not a moment too soon, either, because I had to throw up the blade to block a lightsaber attack as Dilloi was knocked unconscious by a Force Push. The Inquisitor attacked again with a slash. I ducked. He Force Pushed. I let it push me into a wall, which I pushed off of, flipping over in the air and slashing down at the Inquisitor. He blocked. I ducked another slash and drove the blade upwards. He jumped back, then attempted to invade my mind. I pictured a giant 'KARK OFF!' sign. Mister Sith looked enraged at the fact that his mindspin attempt failed miserably, then tossed me upwards with the Force and tried to choke me. I kicked him in the crotch and the face. He doubled over, then looked back at me, his yellow eyes burning with rage. I smirked inwardly and threw one knife. He threw it back with the Force and stabbed we in the leg. I screamed. He walked towards me as black spots danced across my vision. I kept the blade in my leg so it would stop the bleeding. I groaned again as he walked towards me, then was tossed into the air by a large explosion._

 _Then, as I watched, starstruck, he had his arm torn off by another explosion. A LAAT touched down as another flew overhead, gunners keeping the Inquisitor busy. The doors on the LAAT opened and a constant stream of laser poured out._

 _I heard someone say, "You'll be alright, Sabine." It took me a moment to realize it was Tagger. Then, I felt a needle prick my neck, and I started to feel very, very sleepy._

" _Davide, Lika… help them," I groaned. "Dilloi… and Maloia…"_

 _Then, after giving my final orders for the night, I welcomed the onrushing darkness of unconsciousness. Last words I heard were, "Yes, Al'verde."_

* * *

 _ **So, you might already know this, but just to make sure you do, Chapters 7 and 8 are NEW! I took down one chapter, so if you were confused, sorry. Anyways, Al'verde means commander in Mando'a. A "Black Operation" (or a Black Op) is basically just a super-classified, super-high-level operation. If you know what a "Black Site" is, think of it that way, only a military operation instead of a station.**_

 _ **Anyways, sorry for the late update. I've been taking a parkour camp and it hasn't given me much freetime. Anyways, there's one day left, so updates should be coming a bit easier. Also, the P-40 Warhawk that I mentioned is a real plane. Look it up. (Seriously. It looks pretty cool.)**_

 _ **Finally, I'm not sure if you guys will be totally fine with me occasionally flashing back to Sabine's life without Ezra, so tell me if I should or shouldn't.**_

 _ **Reviews are appreciated. -RebelliousWaffle**_


	10. Chapter 10: Poorly Hidden Relationship

"Sabine? Sabine? Lothal to Sabine Wren," Ezra said, shaking me lightly. I brought myself back into reality, having been lost in memory.

"What?" I responded.

"Just trying to bring you back to reality, cyar'ika. Anyways, shall we get going?"

"Sure," I responded, smiling. I don't know what made me smile. Maybe the fact that Ezra liked the ship, maybe the fact that he was back, maybe just Ezra. Definitely Ezra, though. I sat down in the pilot's seat and started the engines, which purred throatily and got us up in the air as the gravity slings readied and the hangar opened. Ezra sat down in the copilot's chair and braced himself as I touched a button and gave the gravity slings orders to fire in five seconds. Silently, I held up one hand, four fingers outstretched.

3…

2…

1…

I pushed the throttle all the way forward as the grav slings fired, sending us hurtling out of the cave at roughly 900 kilometers per hour, albeit only for a second. I knew I had a ludicrous smile on my face as the ship screamed at my attempts to make it pull up. Somehow, I succeeded, the ship doing a graceful loop-de-loop and slowed down to fifty KPH.

"So, Ezra, how do you like your ship?" I asked.

"Bit fast," Ezra responded, as deadpan as you can when you were just hurled out of a cave at speeds that make people dissolve if they're on the outside of a craft. "Other than that, this thing has only improved."

"Would you like to fly it?" I questioned. Ezra nodded, and we switched seats.

"So, same controls as the _Phantom_?" Ezra asked. I nodded. He flicked a few switches, one of them being _500+ KPH_ to _Off_ , and began to fly around. Mostly in circles.

"You know, Ezra, this thing is able to do things other than circles…"

"I know."

I was pressed back into my seat as the ship did a loop-de-loop while spinning to the side in a barrel roll. I could feel the rolls- Oh, that's what Ezra had done: He had turned the artificial gravity off, the crazy _di'kut_. "Ezra, why did you turn the AG off?"

"Aww, do you not like it?"

"Oh, I love it, but why did you do it?"

"Seemed like it would be fun."

"My god, you're so insane."

"You love me for it."

I leaned over and kissed his cheek. "Yes, I do."

Ezra began to kiss me back. I pushed his head back to the airspace.

"I'd love to continue this, blueberry, but if we did we would crash," I said, trying to not sound sultry.

"I'd be worth it."

"But it could be so much better. Like, instead of a chair, we could use an actual bed, and we could do it again, and again…."

The conversation carried into M-Rated topics next, which I will not record on paper or otherwise. I'm not poisoning the minds of my children.

The trip to the LDC was otherwise uneventful. Ezra's landing had a few rough bumps, but overall, I'd rate it… let's say a B-. (Better than most, frankly.)

As the boarding ramp descended, a captain by the name of Richard "Dick" Marcinko (I'm not lying) greeted us.

"'Ey, Miss Wren. What brings you here? Who's this you brought?"

"Hello, Dick. This is Ezra. He'll be helping out around here. He's a Jedi."

"Hi," Ezra said. "Haven't seen you here before."

"New Republic Military Advisor, got here about five years ago. So you're a Jedi, huh?" Dick answered, perhaps a bit aggressively.

"You have a problem with that?"

"You seem kosher enough, shabiur. You'll do."

"Children, stop fighting," I joked. "Captain, if you'll please show us to the Commander?"

"Tosho? Yeah. Follow me."

'Tosho,' real name Toshoshori Yamamoto, was the commander of the LDC. He was a strategist, but also an operator. A 'straight shooter,' so to speak; he told you what he thought of your operational plan, then gave you advice on how to improve it. Nice guy.

Dick led us through about five hallways, most of which had about four or five doorways until we reached CDEF's (Commander for DEFense) office. He welcomed us immediately.

"Hello, Miss Wren, Mister?..."

"Bridger. Ezra Bridger."

"Mr. Bridger. I'm Toshoshori Yamamoto, Commander for Defense," Tosh said, in his crisp Mantellian accent. "You two come here for a tour, or to help with decor?..."

"We're here to volunteer," I responded, which brought a questioning look to Tosho's face.

"Joshua," Ezra volunteered. "The bomber."

"Oh. Him," Tosho realized. "We can use the help. You have a past with him?"

"Yeah. I… don't want to discuss it."

"That's fine. Oh, and about the ammunition request? We've got a quarter of the SCDIV on it right now." SCDIV was the SCience DIVision of the LDC.

"Thanks. Anyways, have you got any leads on Josh?"

"Three. One kidnapping, two seemingly unrelated murders that I have a funny feeling about. Have you got anything for us, information or otherwise?"

"A bit. Josh uses poisoned knives."

Ezra added in a bit. "The knives are made of a cortosis weave."

"How do you know that, Ezra?" I asked.

"He shorted-out my lightsaber with one. Thanks for the hand-to-hand training, by the way. It saved my life again."

"Uh… thanks," I mumbled, slightly embarrassed.

"Both murders had traces of poison. I'll send a team. Anyways, do you two want to handle the kidnapping? We have a team ready and are triangulating where the kidnappers are. I'll send you an alert when we have something significant to report."

I nodded my thanks. "Is the team the same one as Dark Totem?"

"Yes."

"Alright, good. Tell them to meet me at the tower in one hour."

I turned to leave, grabbing Ezra's hand. Before I could leave, though, Dick caught something that Tosh threw and placed it in my hand.

"Vutyc traat'aliit cuir?" I asked, looking at the insignia. It meant 'Special Team Four.'

"You've volunteered and were originally a Commander, so now, you're recommissioned," Dick said smoothly.

"Great. Paperwork."

"Ahh, but you get to give orders."

"Not a great trade-off."

"Better than most."

I smirked a little bit. "What about Ezra? He's former Rebellion, right?"

"We didn't realize you were bringing friends, so we only made one patch. We'll send you another in three hours."

"Okay, good. Speaking of which, how did you even know I was going to volunteer?

"You take Lothal's protection rather seriously, so we figured that a terrorist attack would probably pull you out of your forced retirement."

"Okay. That makes sense. Again, thanks."

"No problem, Commander."

Ezra looked at me curiously as we walked back to the Gauntlet, probably wondering why these guys had come to Lothal. Simple answer: I put out a request for help. If you wanted a detailed answer…. Well, you don't. I'd need an additional chapter to explain it all.

"I put out a request for help, Ezra," I said.

"I was wondering why you didn't rename our ship."

"Oh. I'm… not sure."

"Couldn't think of a name?"

How did he know I was thinking that? Belay that. He probably just read my mind or used some sort of Force trick. "Pretty much."

" _Lightjay._ "

" _Lightjay_?"

"Yeah. When you fly, you feel like a bird, or a Jay, right?"

"Yeah. But, why light?" _Maybe because of the light side of the Force?_ I thought.

"Because of the light side of the Force."

"Makes sense," I drawled.

"It should. Anyways, to the tower," Ezra said, making a cavalry charge symbol. I half smiled and began the launch sequence. The newly christened _Lightjay_ rose into the air and began to head for the tower, where two speeders were waiting. I opened the hangar and slid the ship in. The route almost gave me deja vu: along the hangar floor, over the black and yellow line into the cargo area, past the boxes of excess building materials that I kept here for no real reason, into the elevator, and up to the living area. Ezra tagged behind me the entire time, reminding me of a small tooka chasing it's mother. Smirking at the thought, I gave Ezra a quick kiss, just before trying to open the door.

It didn't open.

Hello, momentary panic. Goodbye, rational thought for a moment. Ezra laid a hand on my shoulder in a calming gesture.

 _Okay, think, Sabine._

"We can cut open the door," Ezra suggested. I shook my head.

"I want to keep the door intact," I responded, my mind racing. _Two of my squadmates got here before me, so what could be happening in there? Attackers? They're Mandalorians, they can handle themselves. I guess…. Wait for them?_

"Let's just wait," I said.

A mind game and two limited sparring sessions in a cramped elevator later, I heard the door unlock. Immediately, I got up and opened said door, barely avoiding kicking it in.

"Hey, commander. Hello, Ezra Bridger," Davide said in a conversational tone, lounging on one of the couches with a cup in his hand. "Do you want wine or caf?"

"Caf," I answered, accepting a cup from him and sitting down. "So, how's Maloia?"

"She's fine. Right now, she's in the refresher, getting cleaned up… that's not what you meant, was it?" Davide responded. I chuckled.

"Ezra, this is Davide Wren, my cousin and demolition expert of Special Team Four. Currently attempting to covertly date Maloia Vizsla-" Davide tried to protest but I cut him off- "And failing miserably at doing it covertly."

"Nice to meet you," Ezra said.

"Just to make this clear, Maloia and I are _not_ dating," Davide insisted. Ezra laughed in response.

"Sooner you just tell your friends, the less awkward and annoying subterfuge will be," Ezra advised, sounding like a sage.

"Oh, so I just walk out and yell, 'Hey, Maloia and I are dating'?" Davide asked. "Which we are _not_."

"No, just when friends ask, you say, "Yeah," and ask them who they're dating," Ezra answered. "And yes, you are. So, how do you know me?"

Both Davide and I laughed. "I think everyone on Lothal knows your name, cyar'ika," I explained. Davide's eyes temporarily widened at the word cyar'ika, which didn't surprise me at all; the word translates to _soulmate_ in Basic.

"Yes, the great Jedi of the Plains, missing since the disappearance of the Imperial Seventh Fleet, supposedly lost in the unknown regions," Davide said. "Also known as the Animal Jedi, the Jedi of the Chimaera, and the Purrgil Jedi."

Maloia chose this moment to walk out of the refresher, fully clothed, just as Davide said 'Purrgil Jedi.'

"Oh, we're talking about the Space-Whale Jedi again?" she asked with a dopey smile. "Maloia Vizsla, Special Team Four. Pleased to meet you, Bridger."

"Space-whale Jedi? Seriously?" Ezra asked.

"Seriously," I responded. "Hey, not the weirdest thing to be called."

"Pretty weird, though," Ezra shot back.

"Hey, Davide, can you grab me a cup of caf? I'm going to go and get some cheese and crackers," Miloia said, walking into the kitchen with a certain amount of swagger in her step. I caught Davide looking at her go for just a little too long.

"You sure you're not dating?" I asked. Davide denied that adamantly, which made both Ezra and I laugh. They were almost certainly dating.

Evidence? You want evidence, dear reader? Allow me to present you with the night of Day 167, 6 BBY: I was mailed a recording from Dilloi, taken just outside Maloia's room. He had found Davide's bunk empty and looked around, then discovered Davide entering Maloia's room. The tape had the following lines of dialogue:

 _Hey, Maloia._

 _Hey, Dav'ika… how you doing, hmm?_

 _Pretty good, now that I'm with you. Are you sure you want this?_

 _Yes, I want it. I want all of it…_

 _Of course, my lady…_

Then, the tape, shall we say, _devolved_ into more carnal matters.

Oh, you want more evidence, reader? How about a security recording this time, showing the two on a date, or perhaps several dozen after-action reports where they were shown to have selected each other to be partners, even when they probably shouldn't have been? Or perhaps a simple dodgeball game, where their first picks are always, you guessed it, each other? The list goes on.

And now, I ask you, my dear reader: Is that enough evidence?

* * *

 _ ***Running from social life***_

 _ **This chapter is crazy late. Sorry! I've been busy, doing... things. Stuff and things.**_

 _ ***Continues running***_

 _ **:) Joking around aside, this chapter is crazy late, and I was doing many things. Plus, I thought I had to write an OC into a book of my choice for my summer reading, so I wasted two weeks on that, then found out NOPE! You can't be that creative, you have to write the plot for the story. Excuse me while I fall asleep from boredom. So yeah, lost my writing spark for a bit, but... longer chapters? Will that make up for my tardiness?**_

 ** _I mean, it will make updates less frequent, but... if you guys want, tell me._**

 ** _-RebelliousWaffle (as you probably know.)_**


	11. Chapter 11: Tracyn (Fire)

_**I AM NOT DEAD!**_ _ **Yay! Summer was really crazy for me, with trips and friends coming over and visiting Germany with my mum for two weeks (It was weird to hear English when I got back) so writing fell by the wayside for a while. But, school is here again, and I have returned to give you this chapter.**_

 ** _And my friends also found out about this story, so I'm mildly worried, but I won't stop posting._**

* * *

Lika and Dilloi showed up half an hour later, entering the tower right as we were finishing our game of Destroy All Of Our Friendships, or, as you might know it, Uno. Right now, it was Davide's turn, and he had three cards left. I had one, as did Maloia. My card was a red 3, and the current card was a red 3.

Davide put down a reverse card, deflecting the turn from me onto poor Ezra, who had sixteen cards in his hand. Ezra put down another reverse card. Davide put down a Green 4 for the reverse card.

I was crestfallen as I took a card from the pile. Red 5. Another: Yellow 9. Another: Blue 9. Another: Red 8.

Six cards later, I got a Green 4 and had run out of curses. Maloia put down a Red 4 and everyone promptly began to hate everyone involved with the game. (Twenty minutes later, we forgot about it for the rest of our lives. Well, most of us, at least: If I forgot about it, I wouldn't be writing this, would I?)

"Ah, so the late ones finally showed up early," Dilloi said, laughing. "I'm assuming you finished your game?"

"What, the game of Destroy All Friendships? Yeah," I said, leaning back into my chair.

"So, commander, why are we here?" Lika asked. "I'm assuming you and your new boyfriend aren't simply feeling lonely."

"No, we're not feeling lonely. We actually need to do Lothal a favor by hunting down some prick named Josh Vanderblied. You may know him."

As soon as I said Josh, I noticed everybody's face hardened.

"Do you know where he is?" Davide asked.

"Not currently, but we do have some kidnappings to take care of in the meantime. We think it may be connected to him." I hit a button on the table, which brought up a holo display of the house. "Policia have blocked all exit routes, but these guys are threatening death to the hostages if they aren't allowed to leave. Negotiators are stalling for time. Lika, do you have your drones?"

"Yes, I do," Lika responded, bringing out a small, remote controlled camera with a propeller on top. It was tiny enough to fit through basically any door.

"Alright, so, we have EE-ONE-D do a scan-" EE-ONE-D was a drone that told us the location of any enemy- "And then we breach in." I pointed to a room on the top floor. "Right here. Davide, Maloia, you're assigned to the North window. Dilloi, Lika, you do the same for the South. Ezra and I will breach East. There are no windows to the West, so we don't need to worry about escapes."

"Seems good to me, Commander," Davide said. "But we need to know what to do once we're inside. I recommend having Maloia and I head down the West stairs while you and Bridger head down the East. One team on each floor of the house. The East stairs head all the way to the basement."

"Seems good. I'll leave you guys to prepare yourselves and figure out your plans for your floors. Make sure you cover all factors," I ordered. Then, I brought up a map of the basement of the house as the rest of SpecTeam 4 left, leaving just Ezra and I.

"You seem tense," Ezra observed.

"Never handled a hostage situation before," I responded. "These walls are simple drywall. We can break them open with charges and shoot through them. I'm thinking move in a clockwise sweep?"

There were four rooms: the room where the stairwell ended, with a training room to the left and a storage room to the right. Then, there were two garages, one slightly smaller than the other. The training room was separated from the smaller garage by drywall. This would be difficult, but manageable… hopefully.

The supplies we needed for this were obvious: breaching charges, guns, ammo. Others were fairly new: charges that could fire grenades through windows, drones with stunners mounted on them, grenades with eight mini-grenades inside them. To get these, we had a one-stop-shop known as "Mandalore."

I pushed the Lightjay into hyperspace with Mandalore's coordinates put in. We had almost everything we needed, but we needed to get the few remaining necessities from professional warriors because they were not exactly what you would find on your normal police force. Actually, they were borderline illegal in many situations, but we have a few laws revolving around what you can use in certain situations on Lothal. For instance, for a holdup, only stunners and passive drones were allowed; for a military uprising or major terrorist attack, anything was justified. We had been through one near-disaster, and we had learned from that.

I got up from the pilot's chair and retreated to the bunks, taking off my shirt as I went. Ezra was laying in one bunk, asleep, so I decided to join him.

He woke up almost immediately. So much for him being asleep.

"Hey, 'Bine," he said, speaking softly.

"Hey, Ez," I responded. I pressed myself up against him. He was really, really warm. I liked that.

"Worried?" he asked, after a few seconds. The question was purely rhetorical: if he asked, he was asking how he could help. I nodded. He wrapped one hand around my back, making me shudder as his hand passed a sensitive spot. His hand lingered.

"Cyar'ika," he said, almost alarmed, "Turn around."

I obliged.

"Oh, god, cyar'ika, what happened?" he stammered. "You're really burnt!"

"What?" I asked, genuinely surprised. "Where?"

"Your lower back, to the left."

I felt the area where my supposed burn was. As soon as I touched it, I felt a flaring, searing pain. Gritting my teeth, I pulled my hand away. "I know what that's from."

"Where is it from? It seems like it would hurt if it's being touched by your armor."

"It's a long story."

"Tell me."

"Are you sure?"

Ezra looked me in the eyes with absolute conviction. "Yes. I am."

And so began another trip down Memory Lane, if Memory Lane was full of muggers, murderers, and terrorists.

* * *

 _Fire was everywhere. In buildings, outside, over, under, in and out, up and down, all churning together to create one gigantic mass of flame that picked you up and slapped you in it's heat and blinded you with it's light. My inadequate squad of EMTs was desperately trying to extract any survivors from the doomed campus, but we were quickly running out of time as the roof supports weakened and the blaze began to worsen. Everyone was burnt, even rescuers. A few were expected to die of their wounds._

 _I ran through the hallways of the university, willing the fire to stay back and away from myself. One room, on my left, was sealed shut. Some sixth sense told me that people were in there, so I took a blaster and shot the lock on the door. Stepping back and falling into a guard, I threw a kick, turning on one foot so I could hit with the flat of my foot easier and break down the thin barrier._

 _The door's hinges shattered and it rocketed backwards, broken into two halves. Inside the room were strangers, but they were panicked and had been trapped so I pointed to an exit and told them to run! I would have followed them but something occurred to me as they rushed out and I checked a counter to find a small scroll, made of paper, that was important to the campus so I grabbed it and sprinted down the hallway towards the exit point where I knew there was safety and as I was running a beam detached from the ceiling and began to fall and I didn't know what to do but run faster, harder, like the wind had picked up beneath my feet and MAYBE I could reach the door before the building fell apart but my window of opportunity was closing rapidly and cinders were scorching my hands and feet but I barely noticed as adrenaline coursed through my veins and I began to near the cutoff point but the beam was also weakening and my opportunity was closing and dimly I registered pain as a bit of wood burnt my back but I would be able to make it if I didn't falter but I was running out of breath and my back began to hurt more but my legs couldn't stop moving as I ran as fast as I had in my life and the beam fell but I still had half a second so I rolled and somehow I got out of the burning building._

 _My clothes were torn apart, my shirt ripped down the front and my trousers badly burnt in several places. Everything hurt. My new hair color was charcoal black. Everyone was looking at me like I was an oddity, but from my perspective nothing seemed off. Slowly, I walked over to an officer, gave him the scroll, and collapsed._

* * *

Ezra just stared at me, his jaw unhinged.

* * *

 _ **A/N: Look up Rainbow Six: Siege House Map to see what I'm describing. I'm just taking that map and using it in this story because I'm not able to come up with a good one on my own.**_


	12. Chapter 12: Vutyc Traat'aliit Cuir

I passed around breach charges, special ammunition, and some cluster charges. Dilloi took a cluster charge and smiled just a bit too much. I resolved to keep watch on his placements.

"All right. We're ready to go," someone said over comms.

Lika looked up. "EE-ONE-D is coming in for overwatch."

"Drones ready," Maloia said, tapping her wrist.

"EMP grenades are charged."

"Cluster grenades full."

Ezra looked at me. "Breach Charges ready."

I looked around the assembled warriors. They all had Mandalorian armor (Including Ezra!) painted in several different colors. We all had weapons. We all had gadgets. We all had the knowledge that everyone inside the house was a bad guy.

"May the Force be with us," I said, before leading my team out of the SpecForce speeder and towards the building.

"Through the top?" Lika asked. I nodded and aimed a grappler to the top of the building.

"Remember, go around to your entry points," I told the group. Four of my team ran around the building to their entry points. Ezra stayed by me.

"You've done this before, haven't you?" he asked. I nodded, looking over his armor. It was primarily orange, with lines of blue running down the left side of his helmet and onto his armor, tapering off into points near the waist. Around his visor, there was a silver outline that contrasted beautifully with the orange.

"Cleared out an enemy force barricaded inside of a house seven times," I said simply. "Did an assault of this kind twenty-two, mostly during the early stages of setting up Lothal. Lot of gang activity, some Imp holdouts. Too many people wanted the government to be under their control, so for a while it was hard for the Democrats to have any real power. Anyone who tried to move forward was killed. So, the LDC was tasked with making sure that didn't happen again. Neutralize gangs and Imps and whatever."

Ezra just stared at me. I guess explaining what transitioning from a Empire to a Democracy entails will shock you a bit. I took out a breaching charge and placed it on a window, unfolding it and priming the charge.

"Team One is in position," I said over comms.

"Team Two is in position. EE-ONE-D is beginning scan," Maloia responded. Three outlines lit up in the room that I was facing. Each one was outlining an enemy combatant.

"Team Three is ready," Dilloi said.

I smirked to myself. These people had no idea what was coming for them. "Breach on three. One, two, three!"

I clicked the detonator on the charge and blew out the window with a resounding _BOOM!_ Three terrorists looked towards the window as Ezra and I rappelled in, one bringing his rifle up slightly faster than normal, but he was too late to shoot me as I brought up one blaster and blew his face off. Without totally realizing it, some sense told me that Ezra had killed another enemy with his lightsaber, so I fragged the final one. I heard a gunshot from a room off to my left. That would be Davide and Maloia. Over the comms I heard Maloia say, "Three E.K.I.A. Moving to stairs."

"Three E.K.I.A," I responded. "We're heading down East Stairs."

"One E.K.I.A," Dilloi reported. "Beginning top-floor sweep. Guess we have to catch up to you, Al'verde."

"Good luck," I responded. "Moving down East Stairs."

"Copy," Dilloi responded. "Have fun down there." He reminded me of Rockhopper, our original pilot. Of course, we originally had six members, too...

Ezra and I descended the stairwell quickly but carefully. I flicked up a wrist-mounted electronics detector, highlighting seven or eight nitro cells. They were nasty little things, being entirely made of explosives and activated with a comm call. I held up one gloved hand to make Ezra and I hold position, then I shot at the nitros. I heard several blaster shots throughout the house and several calls of 'one E.K.I.A' and such.

The basement door was heavily reinforced, with a blasterproof wall. I struggled to not laugh, which wound up with me shaking violently.

"Sabine, are you okay?" Ezra asked. I looked back at him.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just trying to not laugh at these preparations. They reinforced the doorway but not the walls," I explained. "Breach charges ready. Stand back." I lay a charge on the wall and primed the detonite outlets, then stepped back, moved a bit to the left, and placed down a cluster charge. Then, I clicked the detonator on the cluster charge, waited three seconds, and blew open the wall.

I was greeted with five enemies. Only catch was, none of them were alive, and two of them were in three different parts.

Ezra looked around the small hell that had been created inside the room. After several seconds of silence, he spoke.

"Well, the charge worked."

I looked over the broken bodies. One had been tossed into a corner. I looked away for a second, then some sense made me turn back, just in time to see their hand move. Instantly, I raised a blaster towards their face. They groaned.

"Who are you?" I asked. No response. The terrorist made a gun motion with his hand and pointed it at himself. I noticed that the floor around him was rapidly turning blood-red.

I raised the blaster and put him out of his misery.

Ezra looked at me. I shivered a little bit and explained.

"He was in too much pain. H-he wanted it to end." I couldn't stop my voice from cracking.

Ezra lay a hand on my shoulder. "Hey, Sabine, it's okay. He was going to bleed out anyways. You did him a favor, okay?"

I looked at Ezra's helmet. Even through his visor, he looked understanding and sympathetic.

I turned away, struggling to keep myself from shattering. All of a sudden, a wall of clarity hit me. _This_ was why I was trained to kill and leave the scene immediately. To not think about pulling the trigger and just… do it. "Let's focus on the mission."

"Of course. I think the hostage is in the next room.

"How can you tell?"

"I'm just guessing from the fact that I can _feel_ panic in there."

"Makes sense." I turned to a reinforced doorway and activated a small torch on my gauntlet, using it to cut a small line in the doorway. "Watch my back. This is gonna take a while."

"Sabine, step back," Ezra said. I complied and watched as Ezra tore the reinforcements off of the doorway.

"Well, that's one way to do it," I said, right before Jumping backwards to dodge three dozen bolts of blasterfire from the doorway. Ezra sent nine of the bolts flying back towards their sender and dodged the rest with a sort of…. Twisting, turning backflip. Rather impressive, as a matter of fact. I watched the nine bolts fly back in and heard three corresponding screams of pain. I looked over at Ezra, who gave me a single nod. Somehow, I heard his voice inside of my head: _In you go. I'll watch your back._

I took out both my blasters and ran into the room, my helmet automatically tagging weapons and their holders. One was already aiming at my head. Doom on you, Bad Guy. I put three bolts into his abdomen, then pivoted on my heel and blasted away another, just before Ezra cut down a third and threw a fourth into a wall. That one sunk down to the floor, injured but unconscious. I checked for any other enemies and was rewarded with one that had dropped their blaster and was currently sprinting for a doorway. I adjusted my aim and shot him in the foot to buy some time, then I switched a blaster to stun and, well stunned him. What did you expect?

I looked down at a small Twi'leki girl, probably about fourteen, and her mother, about thirty-nine, both on their knees with bound hands. Both were gagged and, interestingly, both were blue skinned. Not sure why I noticed that. In any case, I knelt in front of them and took off my helmet.

"Ezra, secure the two E.I. ," I said, using the radio slang for 'Enemy Injured In Action.' Then, I looked over the two hostages. "Can you two walk?"

The mother nodded. The daughter shook her head and put out her leg, which was roughly bandaged and tinged red. _Chit_. I looked at it closer, and then looked at Ezra. He was finishing up binding the two remaining terrorists.

"Ezra, can you handle the doorway?" I asked.

"Yeah. Do you want me to call the rest of the squad?"

I thought about that for a second. "Call Davide and Maloia. They're Team Two."

"Alright."

Ezra put his commlink up to his mouth and began to speak as I tried desperately to remember anything, _anything_ , about Ryl. The only thing I could think of was Basic translations. Well, I guess that's better than nothing. In any case, I crossed my fingers and hoped that one of the two understood Basic. "May I take a look at your wound?"

The older one translated. I guess she understood Basic. The small girl nodded and undid the bandage, revealing a deep red scar that had dried blood all around it. (It was actually worse, but since I don't know when you're reading this, I'm not taking the chance that it's right after a meal and I don't want you to throw up.)

In summary, she wasn't going to be walking for a while.

I must have had a look of total horror on my face because the older woman asked, "Is it bad?"

I shook my head, but kept my expression severe. "I've seen worse."

"How much worse?"

"Much worse," I responded, intentionally keeping my response vague. I noticed Davide entering the room. "Hey, Davide, can you check this girl's leg?"

"Yes, ma'am. Does she speak Basic?"

"No, but her… mother?" I began, aiming my question at the older Twi'lek. She nodded. "Her mother does."

Davide nodded and began to speak to the mother. I looked at Maloia, who was setting a 'Brimstone' charge on a wall. She cast me a look. I shook my head and pointed to Ezra, who was busily cutting a hole in the reinforced doorway. Maloia nodded and repacked the Brimstone.

"You and Ezra get ready," she told me. "I'll watch Davide's back."

"Don't want anyone sneaking up on your boyfriend?" I said, as seriously as I could.

"Yeah," Maloia responded. "Wait, no! He's not my boyfriend!"

I pivoted on my heel and stared very, very deeply into her eyes. "Do - you - seriously - expect - me - to - believe - that?" I said, very slowly.

Maloia activated a one-way channel on her comm. "He's my fiance."

I nodded. "Well, I'm not surprised. Anyways, you make sure he doesn't die. Ezra and I'll procure a way out. Make sure you don't break their ears," I said.

"All right. Make sure you and your boyfriend don't die," Maloia said lightly.

"I will." I walked over to Ezra, who had completed his… wall-slice-cutting thingy. The thing where he cuts a roughly-six-foot circular hole in a wall. I dunno what to call it. Sue me. (Please don't, I just dropped about 1,500,000 on a new house for me, my blueberry and my kids. Actually, about 1,600,000… nevermind, I'll hush before I bore you to death.)

"Alright, let's do this. Anyone beyond that doorway is a permissible target," I explained. Then, I called to the Twi'leks. "Cover your ears. We're going loud."

"Breach on three. One, two, three!"

And so began another small segment of hell that we call combat. I saw Ezra rush in and deflect three blaster bolts, then heard two cries of pain, so I ran in and began to fire at anything deemed a hostile. Person holding a blaster in the corner? Tagged. Tango trying to whack me with their gun butt? SOB down. Any of the three people trying to kill Ezra? Dead, dead, and dead. No need for mercy; I had seen what they did to hostages before. Just from looking at both of the hostages clothes, I could tell something had happened. They were ripped…. Suggestively. That was part of the reason my armor was black, gold, green, and blue. Gold was the color of vengeance. Black is justice. Green is duty, blue is reliability.

As the final enemy in the room went down, I looked at Ezra and everything seemed to slow down as he stepped into an explosive trap.


	13. Chapter 13: Thinking To You

_**To the Guest reviewer (It's always Guests, interestingly enough) who commented, and I quote, "Why the f*ck did you write this Sabezra sh*t?" I wrote it because I enjoy it. Clearly, you don't enjoy reading it. So, my response is, why in the Nine Corellian Hells are you reading it, then? All you did is waste your time.**_ **Your _time. Not mine; It barely took me a second to read your review._**

* * *

 _Two weeks later_

* * *

Ezra hadn't woken up yet.

I was on the verge of crying for the fifth time in a week. Instead, I held Ezra's hand, willing him to wake up.

It wasn't working.

 _Come on, Ezra. You'll be okay…._

 _Right?_

 _Of course you will. You can't die. I won't allow it._

 _Ezra, if you die, I'll kill you._

 _I swear, I will._

 _You'll break your promise, too…_

 _Remember a couple weeks ago? When you promised me a family?_

 _You still have to make good on that._

 _If you don't… I'll be..._

 _Well, I'll be angry._

 _You don't want to make me angry, Ezra._

 _You know what happens when I'm angry._

 _You don't want to make me angry and you don't want to make me cry._

 _Fek, I only cried for you once before this month._

 _The day you left._

 _Left Lothal, I mean. You left a lot, but I knew you were coming back soon…_

 _That didn't really make the anxiety go away, though._

 _The thoughts that one day, you would come back in a body bag._

 _Or worse, not at all…_

 _That's half of the reason why I tried to go with you on every mission I could._

 _Of course, I'd never admit to myself what the other reason was…_

 _I…_

 _I was scared to tell you that I loved you._

 _I was always telling myself, "This mission. This time I'll tell him."_

 _I never did._

 _I guess you leaving was the shock I needed._

 _So to speak._

The only sound in the hospital room was the steady beeping of the monitor that tracked his heart rate. I had been here for the last week-ish. At first the doctors tried to get me to leave, but somehow Ezra started to show improvement the exact moment I arrived. They let me stay and offered me a small room near the "personal ward" that Ezra had been put in for 'extensive burn and blunt force injuries to the patient's body, induced by a small package of explosive material.' In Basic, that meant that he was in this ward because he was a special case. It wasn't exactly special. The walls, ceiling and floor were all still stark-white. The door was still uninteresting steel. It was still cold to ward off some disease. Still had the basic medbay gear that I had grown _oh so fond of_ during the Battle for Lothal.

I still remember bombs dropping.

 _Like when TIEs were strafing the Ghost._

 _How many times had that happened?_

 _Dozens._

 _We got used to it, though._

" _Hey, Hera, we've got TIEs."_

" _Well, shoot them."_

 _It was exciting at first, but after a while, strafing patterns got predictable._

 _Not boring, exactly, but not incredibly exciting either._

 _Like that one time, on Bothawui._

 _Remember that, Ezra? When there were, like, eighty bombers?_

 _The Great Bothawui Nerf-Shoot? Remember that?_

 _When we each tagged six or seven TIEs?_

 _We had X-Wings helping, though._

 _They… well, helped, of course._

 _They weren't exactly inviting the bombers to granite, flimsi, knife, were they?_

So many thoughts were swirling through my head it was difficult to see just one. Like having a hundred holovids on the same screen at full volume while people screamed random numbers at you and you were being zapped with small volts of electricity at random intervals.

 _How many hundreds of times have we been shot at, Ezra?_

 _And you dodged it all without armor, but the moment you get some proper kriffin' protection, you step into a fekkin' landmine?_

 _You absolute di'kut._

 _I guess you're not a total idiot, though…_

 _You picked up Mando'a pretty quickly._

 _Well, quickly-ish._

 _I still remember hearing you trying to pronounce 'Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum' over and over again._

 _That was your gift to me, wasn't it? Right before you left, that's what you told me._

" _Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum, ner akaanior ladee."_

 _Literally meaning, I love you, my warrior lady._

 _You took so long to get it perfect, to the point where you lost some sleep because of it..._

 _You're so cute when you're sleeping, Ezra._

' _That sounds messed up, Sabine.'_

 _It's true, though._

 _Wait… that wasn't me._

 _Was it?_

' _No, it's not.'_

All of a sudden, I could hear Ezra's voice inside my head, clear as day. But he wasn't talking.

 _H-how are you-_

' _Sabine, this is gonna sound confusing, but I'm using a type of telepathy to speak to you.'_

 _Wait, so you're talking without actually talking?_

' _Yep.'_

 _How? You know what, forget I asked that. Can you do this with anyone?_

' _No. I can only do it with people that I've formed a close bond with, like you, or Kanan, or Hera. The stronger the bond, the easier it is. For instance, with Governor Azadi, I really need to concentrate. But with you… well, we're close enough that this is almost as easy as talking normally.'_

 _Wait. So, you're telling me that you can speak without actually speaking._

' _Yes.'_

 _And you only do it today, instead of any other time?_

' _Well, Kanan kinda had a bit of a talk with me and explained a bit of this.'_

 _Wait, you talked with Kanan?!_

' _Yes. I can see if he can, uh... 'contact' you as well.'_

 _This seems remarkably normal for you, Ezra._

' _That's rich, considering the fact that you haven't left my side for the past week.'_

I smiled. _Maybe I'm just possessive, blueberry._

' _Yeah, maybe… or maybe you can't believe that you let me step into a trap and nearly die, and now you're kicking yourself over it. Thanks for the armor, by the way. It saved my life.'_

 _That's what armor does, dimwit. It saves lives._

' _Well, thanks anyways.'_

 _Thank my mother. She's the one that made it. I just painted it for you._

' _Your mother made this for me? That's a first.'_

 _Actually, I kinda explained the fact that I was going to comb the galaxy for you, and she made it for you under the pretense of "making sure you don't get lost again."_

' _I won't. It was quite boring.'_

…

' _And, of course, you're here, and I still have a promise to keep.'_

I smiled. _Make sure you do._

' _I'm a man of my word, Sabine.'_

 _I know. I'm just making sure you don't forget._

' _Hey, it's been on my mind for the past ten- or so- years. I'm not forgetting anytime soon, my lady. Actually, we can make good on that promise right after I get out of here, if you want.'_

I blushed. _Ezra…_

' _What? Nobody can hear us. We're fine.'_

 _Yeah. I guess. Except maybe Slater…_

' _Slater?'_

 _Jedi Medic. Order 66 survivor. Came here about three days ago, on recommendation of General Rahm Kota._

' _Ah. How is the good General?'_

 _Doing fine. Apparently, he's helping train New Republic Commandos with K Squad._

' _K Squad?'_

 _Republic Commandos. Imperial deserters that willingly ignored Order 66. Joined up with Kota as soon as they heard of him. Blew up a bunch of Imp_ ar'gore _to prove their loyalty and then proceeded to train a bunch more Infiltrators, blow up more stuff, train Commandos, blow up more stuff, help Old Republic clone deserters reach Kota, blow up even more stuff, helped train a few ARC/Mandalorian/Infiltrator groups, and are currently blowing up anything the Empire calls a shipyard. They're amazing._

' _High praise.'_

 _They deserve it. They're experts in shooting, explosives, structures, data-mining, climbing, infiltration, you name it. Amazing._

' _Data-mining?_

 _Ah… polite way of saying hacking._

' _Oh.'_

A long silence followed that.

 _Okay, I'm going to try and actually speak now._

I kinda mind-nodded. _You do that._ Then I held my breath, hoping that this would work.

"Hello?" I heard. I laughed with joy. Ezra opened his eyes and sat up, although with some difficulty.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, blueberry," I said, fondly. Ezra smiled warmly and brushed a tear off my cheek.

"Never left it," he responded. I bit my lip.

"For a few seconds after your run-in with the trap, your vitals were… well, they were null. So you actually were… well… I-I…"

I choked on my words. Then, I sniffed a bit. Emotions, man; they're so unpredictable.

Ezra stared at me deeply, intently. I stared back.

"Stop crying, Sabine. It's not a good look for you."

"Dead doesn't look fantastic on you either."

"Well, good thing I got rid of that look."

There was a long pause of about five seconds before either of us spoke.

"You better not try it out again, Ezra."

"I won't."

"Promise."

"I promise not to die until you do so as well."

"Now keep that promise."

"Yes ma'am," Ezra said, smiling widely and saluting cheekily. I wasn't sure whether to kiss him or slap him. I settled on kissing him, before realizing something else.

"Oh! I repaired your armor for you," I said, grabbing Ezra's armor from my room and presenting it to him. It had four streaks of orange, one down the front, one down each of the arms, and one down the back. The helmet was also almost entirely orange, with a blue outline around the helmet. The shoulder armor had a dark-green Phoenix on one side and a four on the other. The four had the words _Protection Through Active Offense_ carefully painted under it. I had put some dark-red on the hand-armor, because red is a color that signified honoring a parent. On the chest armor, there was an orange outline of a phoenix, with the actual phoenix in blue. The lower leg armor, however, was permanently singed black, so I had painted it black, for justice.

Ezra had an insane grin on his face. I guess I did good.

(As I'm writing this, Ezra is looking over my shoulder, telling me that I did do good. Hooray! And there's my recall to active duty in the Resistance because of the First Order's invasion! Not yay!)


	14. Chapter 14: Ad'ika

**_The next chapter (minor, minor, minor spoiler) is called Riot, so I've got Riot by Three Days Grace stuck in my head. But now that I'm actually humming it, I'm hearing Saturday Night by Panic! At The Disco._**

 ** _I don't understand me._**

* * *

 _Several Months Later_

* * *

I flopped back onto the couch at home, turning on a holovid as I fell. I was going to select a war video, just so Ezra and I could laugh at how wrong the vid got war, but I eventually went with something called _Band of Brothers_ that looked interesting. I could hear Ezra in the kitchen, rustling around as he made dinner. Lothalian steak tips with some sort of oil. Seemed delicious.

(Now I'm hungry. Kriff.)

The holovid came on as Ezra put something in the oven. As some delicious smell wafted into the living room, I yelled, "It's starting!"

Ezra walked into the room and actually vaulted over the couch before sitting down. "Hey, Sigma, turn off the lights," he called. The room darkened. As we watched, six or seven men ran through what looked like a airborne training regimen.

"Why only men?" I whispered to Ezra, who only shrugged. I wasn't offended or anything, just a bit confused. Other than that, the vid was quite good, as hundreds of crafts flew across the sky and people jumped out of them with parachutes. Looked pretty, even if it was impractical.

The oven beeper went off as several of the characters were creeping up on a gun emplacement, ready to fire the entire time. Ezra paused the holovid right as the… "Americans" I think they were called, were about ready to fire. I glared at him. He shrugged, got up, and grabbed dinner, floated it onto plates, and carried them to the living room with the Force. I looked up at him as he deposited my plate on the small table in front of us.

"Show-off," I said, lightly.

He smirked and sat down. I pressed play on the remote, just in time to see the Americans blast away at something called an Anti-Aircraft gun. It reminded me of a anti-fighter turbolaser.

My mind began wandering over the last couple months. Josh had vanished from the LDCs sights. We raided his home, which yielded nothing interesting except for the fact that he got his grubby paws onto some military-grade high explosives that nearly incinerated a few detectives and damaged several nearby homes. Reconstruction was ongoing. We only managed to salvage a speeder from the wreck. Forensics teams were going over it now. As of right now, the case file rested in an unresolved stack. I was slightly irritated about it, but at the same time, happy. Hera was pulling some strings in the New Republic Intelligence Bureau to try and get some idea of where Josh disappeared to, but it was still difficult. He seemed to be trying his best to stay off the radar. I suppose that was smart, considering I had motivation to [Censored so you don't throw up].

The steak was delicious as well. Rare, but not overcooked, and full of flavor. I could swear there was just a little bit of spice playing around on your tongue, but it was faint and frankly barely noticeable. It was also very tender, seeming to fall apart with very little prodding, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand now I'm hungry again. Kriff.

I set down the now-empty dinner plate and laid my head on Ezra's lap. I was content to stay as the American squad in the holovid prepared for a large assault on some sort of coastal fortress.

Ezra ran a hand through my hair as I began to sit up to grab some fresh air. "Why do you dye your hair?"

The question caught me off-guard. I took a second to respond, gesturing for Ezra to follow me outside. "I… To make it interesting, actually. In the academy," I said, shivering at the mention of Skystrike, "Everything was black and grey and white and so _boring_. I… when I left, I wanted to be different, so… I dyed my hair. It was pretty much a kriff you gesture to the Empire. Like why I have the phoenix tattooed on my shoulder, or the dragon on my back."

"So, your difference is to annoy the Empire?"

"Pretty much."

It was quiet for a bit, the only sound being the gentle gusts of summer wind as we watched the sun slip below the horizon, painting the sky pink, purple, and orange. "You know, when I first saw you, the first thing I noticed was your hair. It reminded me of the sunrise."

My eyes widened a bit, but Ezra wasn't done. "The second thing I saw was your eyes. And immediately, I was in love."

I turned and stared at Ezra. "You know… right around the time when we got to Yavin, I started to look at you and my stomach started to... tie itself into knots. It took me a while to realize that it was love."

It was night now. The moonlight played across the transparisteel in a beautiful pattern. I looked up at Ezra, who was looking down at me ever so slightly. I didn't even realize that he was taller than me now. I didn't care in the slightest. As long as I was able to kiss him without a stepladder, he could grow.

Ezra's eyes twinkled in the light. They said so much without any words. I shivered, but I wasn't cold.

His mouth met mine. I cupped my hands around his face. We stayed like that for a few seconds, then I heard them. The words I had waited for for so long.

" _Mhi solus tome_. _Mhi solus dar'tome. Mhi me'dinui an. Mhi bar'juri verde."_

 _We are one when together, we are on when parted. We will share all. We will raise warriors._

I gasped audibly. The unbreakable vow. That... that was most sacred commitment you could make, and Ezra had just said it. To _me_. All of a sudden, I was nervous. Why was I nervous?

Because of my own silly brain. It was whispering to me: _Are you ready? Is this what you want? How can you be sure that Ezra wants_ you _?_

 _Well, if he didn't want me… why would he say the words?_

In that moment, I knew.

I repeated the words. " _M-Mhi solus tome. Mhi solus dar'tome. Mhi me'dinui an. Mhi bar'juri verde, ner kar'taylir darasuum."_

And just like that, with just a few (well, thirty) words, my dreams had come true. Ezra was my husband, forever. Not even death could separate us, because when Mandalorians marry, we do not remarry. Full stop. End of story.

(Well, not THE end, but A end. To any other love life. Make sense? I hope so.)

Quietly, I tugged Ezra towards the bedroom.

* * *

 _Sixteen Days Later_

 _Twelfthmonth_

 _Hexday_

 _0934 Hours_

* * *

Ezra gasped as he looked at me, dropping his mug of caf. It shattered on the tile of the kitchen, the brown liquid flowing across the floor. I looked back at him very, very seriously. I saw uncertainty in his eyes, which was quickly replaced with bright happiness. His mind sung happily through our bond.

"Sabine. We… well, you're pregnant."

A thousand thoughts flooded my mind. Most prominent among them was happy singing, with a kind of elated chanting: _Family, family, family, family!_

 _We're gonna have a family!_

I placed a hand over my stomach unconsciously. Ezra kissed me lightly on the cheek, then whispered in my ear, "See? I keep my promises."

"I never said you didn't," I responded, redirecting his kiss to my mouth. We stayed like that for about a minute, until we both realized that yes, humans do need oxygen and no, you cannot give oxygen to another human when you don't have any left.

Ezra placed a hand over my stomach. "Our little miracle," he said quietly. I nodded, not entirely hearing him, too busy thinking of everything that could happen now.

And I realized I was hungry.

* * *

 ** _My apologies that this chapter is shorter; I was running out of ways to make this longer. So, ah... Chao, bacalao! That literally translates to Goodbye, codfish, in Spanish, and is only said because it rhymes!_**


	15. Chapter 15: Riot on Corellia

_**So, I'm running off six hours of sleep. I have no idea how I'm even functioning right now. But, I have been reading a Star Wars book called Lost Stars. If you look carefully, you might find a reference to a character in said book, who is also from a certain planet that many of us know**_ **quite _well._**

 _ **Also, does anyone have ideas for the name of what is currently known as the Bridger Household? PM me or leave it in the reviews if you do.**_

* * *

I rubbed my temples, trying to dispel the headache that I was getting because of this shabla information about a shootout _en masse_ on Corellia via the New Republic Holonet. Cameras were showing several riot-control vehicles and civilian speeders firing back and forth. Officers were using blasters set to stun. Rioters were trying to kill via any means. Ezra looked over the holo and groaned.

"You know, Kallus can give us an update on how the war is going. You don't have to watch the Holonet for it."

"I know. But it's kinda funny to see how… saturated it is," I responded. "They get so many details wrong."

"I suppose it's easy to pick apart newscasting about a topic you're well versed in," Ezra deadpanned.

"You're not wrong. It is rather easy, especially when the topic of discussion is your… _expertise._ "

"You're saying your expertise is sending bad guys to their rewards?"

"Considering how well we do it? I'd say we have a special talent for it."

"Do you think it's hereditary?"

"Yeah. Actually, no… well, maybe…. " I said. Ezra laughed.

"And there's a selection of three answers to choose from. Never say you don't answer questions thoroughly," he responded jovially. I tried to scowl and wound up smiling. Ah, light humor.

"You know, Mandalorian… for lack of a better word, _superstition_ , says that the combative capability of your parents is passed down to you, through the will of the gods," I stated. Ezra cocked an eyebrow.

"You believe this?"

"No. But, I think there might be a grain of truth."

"What, that you can inherit fighting skills from your parents?"

"Not necessarily. I think that you might be able to inherit certain traits that can give you an _advantage_ in combat, but you have to be taught proper fighting skills. Like inheriting the Force, for one."

"Ah."

Ezra took a sip of caf. I grabbed my cup off the table and walked over to an easel, picking up a paintbrush and quickly dipped it in pink and swiped it across the canvas.

"Pink. You're conflicted?"

My expression betrayed my surprise. Hastily, I rearranged my features. "Yes. I am. I want to help suppress the riot on Corellia, but…"

"You don't want to endanger Mira," Ezra guessed. I nodded.

"Wait, Mira?"

"Our baby."

"How do you know our child is a girl?"

"I can sense it."

My eyebrows attempted to escape my face. Ezra laughed at my expression. I shot him a withering look. He remained annoyingly unwithered. We held each other's gaze for roughly five minutes before Ezra looked back out over the autumn landscape. The fields were now a beautiful gold and lovely as anything that any Deep Core poet has written. (Their war poetry leaves a lot to be desired, however, with all their talk of courageous charges against impossible odds and a magical victory. Impossible odds are impossible for a reason; that's why attacking in another direction was invented. (Some call attacking in another directing 'retreating.' I call them crazy.))

"You know, if someone had said that this was in the future for us when we first met, I'd have said they were crazy," I murmured, walking up to the glass. "And then kicked them."

"What do you say now?" Ezra asked. It was a loaded statement, I knew.

"I don't…. really know," I said. "I think I admitted the fact that I loved you to myself about two years after you joined the _Ghost_. I just… one day, I woke up and I realized you were my best friend and knew more about me than anyone else, and it kinda scared me but I wasn't entirely scared, you know? It was… comforting, too, knowing that someone as loving and cute and as…. I don't know, as…." I struggled for the right word. "As…"

"Me-like?" Ezra suggested.

"Yeah! You were cute and funny and brave so utterly _you_ and I woke up and realized you were my best friend. And right around that point, I stopped feeling like you were my little brother or something."

Ezra smiled. "We seemed like our own little family on the _Ghost_ , didn't we? Hera was Mom, Kanan was Dad, and Zeb was that one weird uncle."

It was quiet for the next thirty seconds. "You know, I once heard Hera refer to us as the kids," I said quietly. "I never forgot it."

"I heard that too," Ezra said. "I asked her about it. She just said that we were like her kids."

A simple explanation, but it ran so much deeper, didn't it? "I'm not sure that's the entire reason."

"Neither am I, but Hera's incredibly tight-lipped about the subject."

"I guess that comes with the territory of being a general. Or a former general."

"Touche."

Another long bit of silence.

"Oh! Did I tell you? I got a job as a martial arts teacher," I said. Ezra looked at me quizzically.

"Where?"

"Here, at Lothal Combat University. Several kids are becoming interested in the Galactic Civil War, so we're going to try a more hands-on approach, with combat simulations to teach tactics and soldiering and such. You could probably start up a CQC program if you wanted, or you could help me teach."

"I thought you had a job at the LDC."

"I quit."

"Oh. Huh. Hey, is Rex going to be helping?"

"No. He's on Kamino, working with the Kaminoans and his friend Cody to fix the clone's rapid aging. Well, that's what he told me, at least," I explained. "Truth to be told, I'd like to invite him to get a job here."

"He'd probably work the kids to death," Ezra said lightly.

"But he'd do a good job, at least," I responded. "He trained the Commandos."

"No kidding."

"Really."

"I wasn't denying it."

I walked back to the couch and dropped onto it. "So, anything happening in the Force?"

"Not really. I've been talking with Luke about his new Jedi Order. It seems like he's doing fine. He's hounding me to help, though."

"You could set up a offshoot on Lothal," I suggested. Ezra nodded.

"Yeah, I could do-" Ezra's sentence was cut short as he abruptly stopped moving and put one hand to his head.

"Ezra?" I asked. He started to fall forward. I caught him as he started to shudder. "Ezra!"

He didn't respond. Instead, he continued to convulse. I'll admit, I panicked a little bit. I laid him down on the couch, unsure of what to do next. Slowly, though, he began to stop shuddering.

"S-Sabine?" he said, quietly. "Luke is in danger."

"How so?" I responded, keeping my voice just as quiet as Ezra's.

"I saw it. I saw the future. The Jedi are… they're doomed. The Empire is rebuilding in Unknown Space. They're going to take over the galaxy. We have to be ready, Sabine."

"You're sure?"

"Yes. I am."

"Hang on. I'm going to make a few calls. I've got an idea."

"What's your idea?"

"A bastion."

"What do you mean?"

"Like a hideaway. A self-sufficient fortress. My father came up with the idea and my mother improved it a small bit. We built one under our home on Krownest. It'll be the perfect hideout of any resistance. We can run messages through the tower, too."

"You mean our house?"

"Not for long. I… well, I drew up some plans for a house."

"Really? Let me see."

I dashed over to the bedroom and grabbed a datapad, bringing it back to the living room. The diagram showed a square house with a circular hole in the center, roughly thirty-three yards in diameter. The house (three-quarters of a mile by three-quarters of a mile) would sit on a property a mile wide and a mile long, which would be huge for one family, so the house was going to be shared amongst the Specters and anyone else who Ezra and I deemed worthy. So far, the list included Zeb and Kallus, who had declined for Lira San but promised to visit, and Hera and Jacen, who had enthusiastically accepted the offer and left the capital world of the New Republic. (I think it was Coruscant or Byss or something like that.) The indoors, despite being massive, were pretty simple: lodging on the west and east sides, living areas south, staircases to the northwest, southwest, southeast and northeast, work areas, gym, hangar bay (yup) and anything else, aside from gardens. The gardens were outside. In the circle, there was a large training yard that could have some transparisteel slid over it in the event of bad weather. The house was also made from some rather nice materials, like Banshoon Oak wood. Very expensive. The only downside was the cost. 1,400,000 credits for materials, 100,000 for workers, 20,000-100,000 for the machines to build it.

Or, if you can't do this math very quickly, allow me to do so: 1,520,000-1,600,000 credits. Lots of money. Of course, most of my paintings were selling for 100,000-150,000 credits, so I did have the money saved up. About twenty million credits were stored up in the Bridger family coffers. (Oh yeah, I changed my name from Sabine Wren to Sabine Wren Bridger. If you don't like the change, fight me.) A friend of mine, a former Imperial officer named Berisse that graduated from the former Imp academy on Lothal, had even dropped a suggestion to mount phoenixes on flags and hang them on either side of the entrance, with hidden spotlights to illuminate them during the night.

"That's… impressive," Ezra said. "You could split the top floor above the Great Hall, so people can look down onto it."

"Good idea. What about the training yards? Are they up to your Jedi standards?"

"Yeah, I think so. If not, we can probably refit it."

"Okay, good. I just kinda designed this is my spare time," I said, a bit slyly. "Then I put more time into it, and, I made this."

"You'd do well as an architect," Ezra commented. "We should build this. Make a real house."

"You really want to do that?"

"Yup."

"You're sure."

"Mm-hmm."

"Absolutely sure."

"Yes."

"Well, I'll send the plans in and ask for a build crew. Do you have anything specific you want in the house?"

"I think your plans are perfect," Ezra said. "Just like you."

"Aww, thank you." I kissed Ezra quickly. He held my kiss and quickly turned it into something more.

* * *

One half hour later, I had displayed my love for Ezra in a blaze of passion, placed one call and passed along one datapad, which now contained a full readout of the new Bridger household. Construction would be going on for three months or more. Very quick for such a large house. Hera had slipped me a bit of information about the riots on Corellia and the Siege of Cardia, and how riot troopers were having particular difficulty in the capital of Corellia trying to suppress a squad of Imp troops and a poisoned-knife-flinging lunatic that had access to heavy weapons. I had half a mind to grab a rocket launcher, fly over to Corellia, and blow them sky-high before I was told that someone had already done that.

Well, kudos to them, but I warned them to check the ruins. My gut told me that Josh was still alive, and I wanted him delivered to me in binders and shot through the legs, then ejected from an airlock out into the cold expanse of space and left to suffocate and/or bleed out in space, eventually de-orbiting and burning up in the atmosphere of some planet, never to be seen again.

Oh, sorry. Too brutal?


	16. Chapter 16: Taekwondo

**_If anyone here plays Rainbow Six: Siege, remember: If you waver... you're mine._**

* * *

Six fighters lined up across from each other, each in their own version of a guard. I brought my hand down, signaling the start of the matches. Two other matches had judges. I was judging a match between a eighteen year old girl, Lauren, and a seventeen year old boy, Bodhi. Both were excellent for how long they had been practicing (about seven months) and now they were both moving on the balls of their feet, with a little bounce in their step. They circled each other, neither of them willing to make the first move.

"I've seen more action in a game of flimsi, granite, knife, you two," I said in a bored tone. "Pick it up!"

Bodhi smirked and threw a front kick, balancing on one foot and raising his other, throwing out his front foot in a split second. Lauren caught the kick and grabbed it, rushing forward while holding Bodhi's foot. Bodhi fell backwards, landing on his back and slapping out with his hands. He grabbed Lauren's heel and pushed her back with his now-released foot, making Lauren fall flat on her butt. She also slapped out with her hands as Bodhi leapt up on top of her, pinning down one arm with his leg, but Lauren bucked and got her hand free, capturing one of Bodhi's arms and rolling him over, winding up straddling Bodhi's chest and hugging herself to him, keeping her head down. Bodhi pushed one of Lauren's legs down and slipped his own past, then 'shrimping' by pushing himself off to the left side and bringing his other leg back, getting Lauren back into his guard and grabbing one arm, pushing it back through his legs, which was around her neck by now. This position was called 'Giant Killer,' and for good reason; it had killed many gigantic challenges in hand-to-hand combat. It was ripe with options, like a triangle choke or a armlock. Both were deadly, but I trusted the control of each combatant. Lauren pulled her arm, free, though, and got to the side of Bodhi, pushed him over and pinned one arm behind his back, then wrapped one arm around his neck and locked up the choke.

After a few seconds, Bodhi tapped on the ground. Lauren let go of the choke.

"Well, I think I won," Lauren said, without any sense of superiority. She and Bodhi were good friends, and this was the latest in a long string of mixed-martial-arts matches that were, frankly, a coin toss. They were about equal in skill, and they were both remarkably resilient. Heck, they could probably make it through the extended version of Commando Resistance to Interrogation. (Half of that was sitting on a block of iron, staring at a wall, not being allowed to sleep. I daydreamed.)

"You did win," I said, looking Lauren over. "But remember that in a fight, punching your opponent on the ground is a viable tactic. You too, Bodhi."

Both of them nodded and bowed to each other, ending the match. I looked over the rest of the matches, where one pair was busy trading kicks and the other pair was attempting to kill each other on the ground. I walked over to the murderous two.

"Bring it down a notch," I admonished. The two complied. Bodhi and Lauren were also trading kicks now. As I watched, Bodhi brought one leg in front of Lauren's waist and put the other one behind her legs, balancing himself on one hand and pushing Lauren backwards with his top leg, essentially tripping her. The technique was called "Scissor Kick." I enjoyed doing it, but as I watched, Lauren rolled backwards, stood up, darted around a bit, and cartwheeled, kicking Bodhi in the head twice. He dropped like a rock.

I ran over as Lauren came up from her cartwheel, gasping at what she had done. I placed a hand on Bodhi's collarbone, then on his skull, pushing lightly.

"Nothing's broken," I said quietly. "He's fine."

"Oh thank god," Lauren gasped. I bet she had stopped breathing for a moment.

"Alright, can you help me move him off the floor? Actually, better yet, get the nurse," I ordered quietly.

"Okay," Lauren said. She seemed relieved to have something to do. I gathered Bodhi up and brought him over to the side of the training floor. It was the first knockout of the program, but I had (for lack of a better word) various contingency plans for the inevitable knock out.

So, I was prepared for this. Lauren returned a minute later with the nurse, who immediately began her work. Lauren, for her part, stood, looking on, not doing much.

"Do you still want to spar?" I asked. She nodded. "Alright, I'll spar you."

Lauren had a look of terror on her face as I started to unclip my armor from the bodysuit I wore. "Oh, relax. I'm not going to… how did you put it? _Take you down and flip you over while breaking your arm- all at the same time_?"

"Well, that's the watered down version," Lauren said, just barely managing not to stammer.

"Well, whatever the normal version is, I promise not to do it."

"The normal version is you snapping a neck instead of an arm."

"Well, I won't break anything in your body, unless it's a small amount of skin. Deal?"

"Deal." Lauren took up a guard across from me. I brought my own hands up into guard, whipping my arms up and locking them together with one arm covering my abdomen and the other my head, then dared Lauren to attack.

She didn't disappoint.

I jumped to the side as her front kick soared past, missing me by an inch, hitting my arm and bouncing off. I responded with a high side kick, forcing Lauren to duck. She retaliated- and walked straight into a front kick to her head. She fell backwards and held up one hand, signaling for a ten-second break. I took a knee.

"You okay?"

Lauren put one hand behind her, pushing herself up. "Yeah, I'm okay."

"Good. We have a match to finish."

"Of course." Lauren stood up and shook her head, then threw a side-kick that I never saw coming. I dropped to one knee.

"I suppose that's payback."

"I suppose I now have two points."

"I suppose we should continue with the match."

"I suppose... I'll shut up."

"I'll do the same." I threw a uppercut at Lauren, who danced back and responded with a false forward punch. I saw it in her eyes and threw a fake front kick. She jumped back. I faked another front kick. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And then a real one.

Lauren didn't see it coming and it caught her right in the chest. She stumbled back, but didn't fall. "Impressive."

"Would have been more impressive if I didn't nearly fall," Lauren retorted.

"You kept your balance after being kicked in the chest while unbalanced. That's impressive."

"If you say so." Lauren threw a straight punch, which I blocked and grabbed, then pinned behind her back. She groaned and tried to spin out, but I rotated with her and slowly increased the pressure of the armlock (actually called a _kimura_ , but pronounced _ki-more-a_ ).

Eventually, she tapped, which signaled that she was in pain and conceded. I called time and ended the class only a minute over the scheduled time. Bodhi had stirred about thirty seconds ago and the nurse had arrived and declared him okay.

The class bowed out and I reattached the armor plating to my bodysuit, wondering why in the heck I had ever let up sparring. Not what Ezra and I occasionally did; _proper_ sparring, with points and whatnot. (If you want a more detailed description, look up _MMA Sparring_ on the net. I'd describe it but it's…. complicated.)

School was over now. Actually, it was over an hour ago, but the MMA class took place after school. I didn't entirely care when it happened, as long as I got to teach. It was actually really nice to teach someone how to flip someone else. All these thoughts ran through my head as I exited the building. Lauren had stayed behind with Bodhi and the nurse, likely to either A) keep sparring or B) walk him home. I did not care which, though I did give them a strong warning to not spar without someone supervising. If they got hurt, it was their fault.

They usually just grabbed their gear and walked home, too. I gave them the freedom of choice because I trusted them to not kark up and wind up accidentally hauling my shebs onto the hibachi for a grilling by the LCU (Not to be confused with the LDC. If it gets confusing, tell me, please). I swung my leg over my speeder and gunned the engine, racing out into the grasslands around the Tower.

The half-finished framework of Specter House _**(My thanks to The Lone Rebels 2.0 for letting me use that name. Kisses!)**_ passed by on my right, a skeletal pile of durasteel with piles of materials neatly stacked in durable 'tents' which were actually made of plasteel and were more durable than real tents. Frankly, they were more like mini-warehouses.

The scene vividly reminded me of the rebuilding after the Dome. Materials scattered all around the area, a massive framework of durasteel in the middle, volunteers rebuilding it. And, of course, the attempted takeover….

* * *

 _Five Years Ago…_

* * *

 _Other people were celebrating about the return of true democracy to Lothal. There was a giant party in Capital City, with streamers and ticker tape. I on the other hand, was climbing a mountain in the North Pole of Lothal, trying to gather some sort on intel about a lost recon patrol who had been gathering intel on a mysteriously lost emergency signal from a observational post up here. So, while all of Capital City was making merry, I was freezing my shebs off on a ledge of a mountain designated North-A-18, using some macrobinoculars to look over a large encampment of snowtroopers with hundreds of tents just outside of the observation post. My armor helped modulate the weather, but it wasn't perfect and Lothal's poles are fekking_ freezing. _I shifted and moved, trying to get some blood circulating through my legs._

 _A patrol of snowtroopers walked past my hiding position, not noticing the white-clad Mando a few meters above. The temptation to drop a thermal detonator into their midst was insane. I resisted the urge and turned my focus back to the observation post._

 _This op had been particularly fun in the beginning. Thane Kyrell, a SpecForce commando had commed me on the way here, asking for some advice on a date. We talked for most of the ride, because there wasn't much else to do except clean and calibrate weapons and I had already done that. Basically, the conversation went hi, can you give me advice, I said I'm not the best person to ask about that, Thane said I don't care do it anyway. Then I gave some advice. I ended the call when the craft I was in, a modified Kom'rk fighter configured for stealth insertions, gave the fifteen minute chime and I told Kyrell, "Go deploy, commando. Remember the mission plan."_

 _He laughed. I ended the call and briefed my squad on the mission, then put on my parachute (we had to use shabla parachutes because jetpacks were too loud, apparently. At least the drop was at night) and readied for the drop. We ran silent for about five minutes then began the drop sequence, where we walked to the back of the craft and waited for ten seconds before the floor opened up and we dropped. Maloia did a backflip to show off. I laughed, then walked to the edge, put one leg over, and front-flipped off while spinning to the side. Maloia told me over comms she was impressed. Then, we free fell to one hundred feet, where we opened the parachutes and floated down the rest of the way. At ten feet, we cut the parachutes, landed, and moved to observational posts. Lika called in two E.K.I.A. I wondered why she had killed two enemies but kept it to myself._

 _And, I later found out, those two kills screwed us over. Around fifteen minutes into overwatch, a sense of paranoia and watchfulness came over the camp. They stayed like that for the rest of the overwatch, which made our mission of get in, get intel, get out quite a bit harder._

 _We extracted, without gaining the intel we needed, but we scrambled a response force, which flew up and landed to take on the Imp force with my team front and center. That went well…_

* * *

 _I dove into cover, drawing a throwing knife and chucking it a heavy snowtrooper. Both my blasters had run out of ammo. I signaled for Dilloi to cover me as I reloaded. A squad of heavy gunners got out of cover and began washing the area with fire, unleashing a torrent of lasers from their Z-8 cannons. I took the opportunity to switch cover and drop a thermal detonator into a enemy repeating blaster emplacement. The det went off and a enemy snowtrooper flew behind my cover. I put three rounds into them before I stopped._ Shab _. Don't waste ammo, you fekkin shinie. You have little enough as it is._

 _Three out of ten magazines left. This was worse than the old story of Darkknell. No thermal detonators left. One thermal imploder. Two out of three throwing knives. My CQC knife. Medkit. That was everything I had on my person._

 _Lika aimed a rifle and took out a snowtrooper with a cannon, so I took advantage and vaulted my cover, dashing forward and jumping the cover of three snowtroopers, who each received rounds to the cranium. I retrieved my throwing knife from a dead snowtrooper, then got shot in the shoulder._

 _Of course, this just made me mad._

 _I screamed in pure rage and grabbed a rotary cannon, turning the fire onto the snowtroopers, cutting them down in a sea of blue blaster bolts, fire churning through my veins. My squad told me I went slightly insane. I don't disagree. I was pissed and had a rather fire-y desire to make some snowmen die._

 _You invade my world, waste my resources, kill my people, under my watch- you die._

 _According to my squad again, I ended the day only by passing out after killing seven snowtroopers with my knife all at once. I remember that bit. I leapt down into a trench and drew my knife, stabbing one trooper and kicking him into another as I caught one's blade and reversed the tip, driving it back into his head. Another one tried to shoot me, so I threw the knife at his hip and punched him out before removing the blade and stabbing another one in the neck, cutting his artery and whipping around and chucking a knife into another snowtrooper before kicking one in the knee and stabbing him in the heart and then pivoting on my heel and throwing my final non-CQC knife into another stormtrooper. The final one shot me in the hand so I threw my CQC knife and killed him, before taking my knife back, and I guess blacking out._


	17. Chapter 17: Tano and Bonteri

**_Before this starts: all technobabble in this chapter will not make any sense and I made it all up, so if you actually have any sort of degree in Electrical Engineering, please don't crucify me._**

* * *

Autumn on Lothal is breathtaking each and every time you see it. The wheat turns into a golden crescent, with the sunlight playing across water and a asphyxiating sunset. From a high viewpoint, the view is just beautiful.

From lower down, you can't describe how pretty it is. Thank god that I was moving out of the Tower soon. Specter House was almost totally finished, with just the doorways and windows to complete, as well as the TI-S-X1 shield. Techs call it the Thermo-Residual Magnetic Shield (Prototype). I call it the Totally Indestructible Shield Prototype, because it is just that: totally indestructible. Well, at least it is at full power. Theoretically, it can withstand a full orbital bombardment and still have enough energy to prevent dust from escaping, through air is still allowed in. The major downside of the shield is that it is A) very expensive and B) has a very limited range, because it has to have set points that the shield anchors to. To put it mildly, it's not exactly portable. Plus, it uses AS-21BC3JT Power Converters with J03 Connectors to draw power from a synthetic Kyber crystal (yes, we did manage to make one, but Ezra basically had to breathe the Force into it) to make a Tier 5 planetary shield, with a HK-113-DBK technical board that has to manage 300,000 gigawatts of power. This means it's incredibly easy to destroy from inside the shield, so we have to give it enough power to keep humans out. Of course, to do this, we store half the power inside R4FJQ-ZH93-1209 capacitors when it's not being used at full power and we store the all of the power inside of eighteen A8-DFJ capacitors when it's not in use. If you understood none of that, don't worry: I copied the specs right off an engineer datapad and put them into Basic instead of… whatever you call this tech-babble.

(One recently told me that they do speak Basic on their datapads. I disagree.)

But, the shield basically gave Specter House permanent military base status. I actually said the shield wasn't needed, but the House quickly became a major source of pride for Lothal and as such a permissible military target, so a tech team put it in. Apparently, all of the major buildings on Lothal were getting these shields installed. I was indifferent about the shield now. They could install it, as long as they didn't blow up the house. I had insured it for almost two million credits, which means those techs would be totally out of money and probably in some level of debt. As such, they had a pretty good reason not to blow up my house.

I stood on the balcony of the Tower, watching as two X-Wings flew next to a T-6 shuttle. That would be Ahsoka and probably Lux with her. Rex was battling it out on some Imperial holdout in the far, far 'Rim. Actually, Rex and Cody had been finding clone deserters for quite a while and sending them to Kamino for help with their rapid aging, which had actually been reversed and was now letting Rex and Cody age at a normal pace. It's a lot of genetic shebsie that I won't copy from a datapad because a lot of the words are really complicated and really hard to spell and I don't have the patience to spell-check this fifty times.

The X-Wings set down on the landing pads at the LDC. The T-6 set down on the cleared area we used as a landing pad for the Tower. I walked back inside the Tower, grabbing Ezra by the arm and dragging him with me into the elevator.

"Wha- Sabine, wait!" he said, stumbling out of his chair and over a vidscreen remote that had fallen. I keyed the elevator controls and waited, giving Ezra time to regain his balance.

"Where are we going?" he asked as we waited. I smirked to myself.

"To meet some friends."

"And who are the friends were meeting?"

"I dunno, we'll have to wait and see."

"There is no way you don't know," Ezra said, his voice ringed with doubt.

"You're right. I do know. But I'm not telling you their names until we meet them."

"Aww, not even a hint?"

"Okay, fine. A hint. Only one of the people we're meeting is human."

"So, it could be literally anyone in the galaxy, accompanied by someone from another race."

"Yup."

"That's not much of a hint."

"Can't you use your Jedi mind powers to figure out who I'm talking about?"

"Not when you're shielding your mind."

"I shield my mind?"

"Yeah. I'm guessing it's not intentional?"

"No, it's not."

"Huh. That's… not normal," Ezra mused. "I can't find any cracks in your shield. You're letting nothing through. Try and broadcast your thoughts."

"Uhh… how?"

"Imagine all your thoughts behind the biggest durasteel wall you can…"

"Okay…"

"Now destroy the wall."

"Okay." I destroyed my mental wall.

"Well, that worked, at the very least. Try opening a small hole in the wall, instead."

"I'll try."

"Do, or do not. There is no try," Ezra said, smiling widely. I groaned.

"I walked into that one."

"You really did."

I opened a small hole in my mental shield. Ezra smiled. "You're thinking of a T-6."

"Yup."

"And, because of the fact that you're thinking of a T-6, it means Ahsoka is returning to Lothal, probably either for her marriage or with her husband."

"Who is she with?"

"Either Rex or Lux Bonteri."

"How do you know Lux?"

"She mentioned him to me once. We were talking about… I don't remember. I just remember she mentioned Lux Bonteri."

The elevator doors opened and Ahsoka Tano stood just a few meters away, holding the hand of her fiance, who was indeed Lux Bonteri. He wasn't bad-looking; he had chocolate hair and a nice face. But my heart was set on Ezra and nobody could make me love anyone else. Ezra and I already knew almost every inch of one another. Plus, Mandalorians only love once, and I know Ezra would never even look at another girl with any sort of longing in his mind. Even so, I could see why Ahsoka had fallen in love with Bonteri.

"Welcome to the Tower," I announced. "Please, come in, so we can talk in the elevator for thirty seconds as we ride up to the living areas."

"We'd be glad to," Bonteri said, lacing his hand with Ahsoka's. They stepped forward in unusion. I smiled at the sight and hit the button for the elevator to take us back to the top floor. The doors swished shut once again. Ezra and Lux looked each other over.

"So, you must be Lux Bonteri," Ezra said. Lux smiled slightly.

"That is indeed me. And you are the legendary Ezra Bridger, hero of Lothal," Lux responded.

"Not sure if I'm legendary, but I am Ezra Bridger."

"At the very least, you cause a spectacle wherever you go. Sabine did tell me you made quite the impression on her."

"I said that? I don't remember saying that," I protested, just before I remembered that yeah, I did say that. "Nope, now I remember. I did say that."

"Yes, we heard," Ahsoka said dryly. "I believe you mentioned it to General Calrissian… how many times?"

"Seventeen, my dear," Bonteri. I raised an eyebrow.

"Only seventeen?" Ezra said. "Sabine, you've disappointed me."

Ahsoka clucked disapprovingly. "Lux, I thought you had a better memory. It was 170 over a week for about two weeks."

"That sounds more like you," Ezra said, totally deadpan. I nodded.

"That is very true," Ahsoka responded as the elevator doors opened. Lux and Ahsoka stepped out into the apartment, followed by Ezra and I.

"Nice place," Bonteri commented. I nodded my thanks and grabbed one of four cups of caf off of the kitchen counter. Ezra grabbed another one, then used the Force to float the final two over to Ahsoka and Lux, who accepted them eagerly.

"You'd make a first class waiter," Bonteri said to Ezra. Ezra laughed.

"I think I'd weird too many people out," he responded.

"But you'd have amazing service."

"And be bored out of my mind."

"Touche."

I sat down on one of the fluffy armchairs and very nearly spilled my caf, but Ahsoka caught it with the Force and put it back in the cup. Bonteri raised an eyebrow. "How come you never do that with me?"

"Because the carpet is white here and it would be a pain to clean it up. Besides, you've only spilled caf once."

"So you're saying we should get white carpet? I thought you liked grey."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Try me."

"Children, children," I clucked. "Stop fighting."

Ahsoka took a deep breath to calm herself before passing a nine-by-eleven piece of flimsi to Ezra. He took it and read.

"I'm trying to establish a new Jedi Order," Ahsoka said, "But the Old Order was flawed and the Sith and Jedi are both wrong, in my opinion. This is the Code for it. Do you want to help establish it?"

I looked over Ezra's shoulder and read the code.

 _There is no Dark Side, nor a Light Side_

 _There is only the Force_

 _I will do what I must to keep the Balance_

 _There is no Good without Evil, but Evil must not be allowed to flourish_

 _There is Passion, yet Peace_

 _Serenity, yet Emotion_

 _Chaos, yet Order_

 _I am the Wielder of the Flame, the Protector of the Balance_

 _I am the Holder of the Torch, Lighting the Way_

 _I am the Keeper of the Flame_

 _I am a Guardian of the Balance_

I didn't understand why Ahsoka seemed so serious about her Order. Wasn't Luke starting a new one as well? Couldn't she just join his? Why was this new 'Balance' making such an impact on Ezra? My bond with him was lighting up with all sorts of feelings. Like duty and peace, but also a bittersweet mix of sadness and happiness.

"I think the old Jedi could have used something like this," Ezra said after a long pause. "I'll help you."

"Wait, why are you guys so concerned over this?" I asked.

"Sabine, remember when I told you about Luke's Order?"

"No."

"Well, I'm telling you now. His Order is doomed. It has no chance. One of his students will destroy it all. Ahsoka had the same vision. But both of us could see between the lines; we can't tell Luke. If we do, we'll only make it worse. This is our solution."

Bonteri stared at me. "You have to keep quiet about this, Sabine. Luke can't hear about this. If he does, this situation could become drastically worse."

I looked between the three people sitting in my living room. All of them had a look of steely determination on their faces.

"I'll keep it a secret."

"Good," Ahsoka said. "Can we use the old Jedi Temple here? We're probably going to set up a camp around it."

"Go ahead," Ezra said. "Luke isn't using it."

"Very true," Ahsoka said. "You know, he approached me and asked me if I could help reestablish the Jedi Order."

"He did the same to me," Ezra responded. I looked at Bonteri, who mouthed _I have no clue what they're saying_. I smiled and quickly nodded, before mouthing back, _You'll understand later._

Bonteri shook his head as the two Jedi blathered on for five minutes. In the meantime, Lux and I communicated through hand signals and whispers. I didn't realize that Ahsoka and Ezra had ceased talking until Ahsoka said, "So, Sabine: You're looking…. fertile."

"Yep, I'm pregnant," I responded, subconsciously placing a hand over my stomach, where little Mira was growing. "And within four months, I'll be fat as well."

"You are aware there is a difference between fat and pregnant?" Bonteri commented. I shot him a glare.

"I am aware, Bonteri," I said pointedly.

"Run," Ezra stage-whispered. Everyone laughed at that. Looking back at it now, it reminds me of earlier this evening, right after repelled that big FO attack with no casualties.

But that's for later.


	18. Way Down, We're Human

Alright, so this is my first chapter posted from my phone and I can't figure out how to do line breaks. Great start.

 _ **Line Break**_

I looked wildly around the room, searching for a weapon of some sort as my opponent closed in on me, and I knew they would be here soon so I had to find some sort of weapon, but all my fingers closed around were-

Bedsheets.

I was on Lothal.

Cold sweat ran down my face, followed by a traitorous tear. Ezra sat up next to me, putting one arm around me and staying there.

Tears began to stream down my face. My chest began to heave, wracked with sobbing.

"Ssh, ssh ssh," Ezra said quietly, swiping at my tears slowly. I pushed myself up against his chest, finding the solid contact therapeutic. Ezra held me a bit tighter. I reveled at the contact, but at the same time it made me cry harder. Ezra said nothing as I poured out my pain, instead just keeping me close to him, letting me cry.

After a while, I regained some of my composure. Ezra quietly asked me, "Nightmare?"

"Y-yeah…" I said shakily. "I don't remember anything about it, just the…"

My voice failed me. Naturally, Ezra filled in the blank. "The panic."

I nodded.

"And… the pain," Ezra said, after a small wait.

"You… know? Do you know what my nightmares are about?" I asked. Ezra shook his head.

"It's… It's…" I took a shaky breath. "It's that night at the fuel pod. But it's not always Kanan that dies… sometimes, it's…"

"Sometimes it's me?" Ezra guessed. I nodded, tears forming in my eyes once more. Ezra now knew my most secret demon, my kyukyoku akuma. I remembered my dream.

"We… were standing on the fuel pod, in the dream, and I'm in prison clothes, remember what Hera was wearing? That's what I'm wearing. And you're looking at me, and the first thing I notice is your eyes and how pretty they are an I realize I'm in love with you. Totally in love with you. Like, hopelessly in love with you, and as soon as the mission is over, I want to kiss you and marry you and have a family with you, but then I see the AT-AT in the background and I realize we have to get going, and I pull you towards the shuttle, but before I do that I kiss you, and it feels so good and right and perfect and you just return it and I feel like I just want to stay in the moment forever. But we have to get going. But then, I see the AT-AT fire, and the fuel pod ignites and you shove me towards the shuttle and my throat is hoarse from screaming and you're holding back the flames with the Force and I want to run to you and save you but Kanan is holding me back and… you look at me and I can see how much you love me and it's infinite, but you die in the-" I stumbled over my words. My voice dropped to a whisper and tears began to pour down my face. "Y-you die, Ezra, in the flames. Like Kanan."

"Cyar'ika…" Ezra said, pulling me close. "Kanan being gone… does it still hurt?"

"Yeah, blueberry. It… it really hurts. I don't think it will ever stop, Ez, and I'm… I'm scared."

"It won't go away, cyar'ika. But it will dampen over time; it will become something you can move past. I've never stopped feeling the pain of losing my parents, cyar'ika, but I've moved past it. It's the same with Kanan. You'll never stop missing him, but you'll be able to move past it… eventually."

"What… how will… how can I tell?" I asked roughly, trying not to cry again.

Ezra stayed silent as he thought. "When… when you wake up and realize that you don't resent the sun for rising."

I nodded slowly. "You know…. I've cried more about the fuel pod and losing you than I have over…. anything else. Ever."

"I only got over Kanan's death with a lot of meditation, actually. I… I had a lot of time for it, waiting for you."

"I distracted myself," I said. "I penned it in and… it's destroying me, blueberry, even now."

Ezra just squeezed me tighter. I grabbed his chest and began to cry again. He ran a single hand through my hair, which messed it up royally but was oddly comforting. I pushed myself into his chest again, hugging my arms around him.

"Cyar'ika, I need you to… to drop your shield."

I complied, and instantly I felt more at peace, more… what's the word? More attuned, more… whole. "What are you… what are you doing, Ez?"

"I'm… it's complicated. I'm kinda taking your regret and giving it to the Force. It's like… it's something I do in meditation, but I'm doing it to you instead of myself. Does that make sense?"

"Umm… kind of?" I said, not understanding one of the infinite mysteries of the universe.

"Okay, basically, I'm going into your mind, taking your doubt, regrets, worries, grief, and such, and giving it to the Force. I can't completely remove it without severely damaging your mind, so I'm just…. I'm mellowing it out. Am I… do you not want me to do it?"

"No!" I said, way too loudly for the occasion. "Just… no."

I let my shield drop entirely, allowing Ezra to direct the Force through my mind. Quietly, Ezra ran a hand through my hair, which I was letting grow long. The light streaks of blue and purple tangled in between the tan of his hands, soothing my shattered nerves. I sighed contentedly as the Force flowed through my mind like a river of reassurance and peace, smoothing over my rough fears and my coarse doubts.

Eventually, Ezra began to untangle himself from me. I shook my head. "Please… stay? Just a little longer?"

Ez laughed softly. "You mean stay for the rest of the night? Sure."

I don't remember falling asleep. I do remember that when I woke up, we were in the same position with the blanket wrapped around us. The sun was rising ever so slowly over the horizon. Ezra woke up and looked at me, his face morphing from serene into smiling from just looking at me and my probably messed up hair.

"You look crazy."

"You are crazy."

"Aww, my feelings have been hurt."

"Hey, anyone who goes trapezing off with space-whales for seven years to get their girlfriend to fall in love with them is certifiably crazy in my book."

"So I'm a crazy, love-driven Jedi?"

"Yeah. But you're my crazy, love-driven Jedi."

"And probably the first Jedi to…"

"Go and run around in Wild Space for five years before crashing your personal Star Destroyer onto a Rebellion safeworld and then waiting for your girlfriend to come and find you?"

"I was going to say have a Mandalorian girlfriend, but that works too."

It was quiet for a while again. I untangled myself from Ezra's arms, which provoked a rueful laugh from him for some reason. I changed my clothes and tugged on some black loose-fitting workout pants and a grey t-shirt. "I'm gonna go running. Care to come with?"

"Sure," Ezra said, slipping on a pair of jeans and a orange tee.

I looked him over, relishing the sight. Not only was Ezra able to make my fears vanish and knew exactly what I needed when I needed it, but he was also hot as haran.

I pushed him onto the bed. "You know what, I think this would be a bit more fun than a run."


	19. Home

This message is for Boragarth: I tried; it didn't work. And, in any case, MavickSawyer is right: It is admin software. Copy and pasting seems to be working, so HAHAHA, school system.

Also, sorry about the chapter uploads being so spaced out. Mucho tarea.

 _ **Linebreak**_

According to the medics, I had cursed Ezra in four different languages with two-hundred-fifty-six different words, one-hundred-and-twenty of them being different swears, fifteen being different variations of the same swears and fifty-seven different curses. The rest were all just variations of curses.

For some reason, it surprised me that Ezra didn't leave my side while I was throwing curses and basically demanding his head on a silver platter. I have no clue why it surprised me, but it did. But, Ezra had followed me through hell before; why should childbirth be any different?

Answer: because Mira didn't want to leave my stomach. Again, no clue why. Maybe I would think of a reason if I knew what my own birth felt like, or my own time in the womb, but I don't remember it. In any case, Mira really didn't want to exit my stomach and made her displeasure known by immediately beginning to cry and being a right pain to actually get out. I'm making a massive generalization of birth, I'm aware, and the way I'm describing it doesn't even come close to how karking painful it was. Males, think of the greatest pain you have ever felt, maybe a kick in the groin, and multiply it by ten. Then you have about the pain of labor. Ladies, you'll find out how painful this is later in your life, assuming you have children later in life (unless you already have them. Then you know what I'm talking about).

But, it was worth it. Baby Mira looked cute, even if she had a bit of attitude. She had midnight blue hair, the same color as Ezra's, with amber brown eyes that Ezra said looked just like mine. She was also pale-skinned (I can't say white, because this is 2018), but everyone knew that was going to change, because the temperate climate on Lothal was inviting for everyone to go and have some fun in the sun. And, to put a cherry on top of the cake, she was Force-sensitive. I only found out about that from Ezra, who said she, and I quote, "shines brighter in the Force than a star." This mildly distressed the medics, who thought Ezra meant his newborn child had a really high fever, so I explained to them that it actually meant that she was really, really, really (insert twelve more reallys here) strong in the Force. She then proceeded to levitate a small tissue. I really hope it was accidental.

Ezra held my hand as we took a speeder to the newly made Specter House, where Hera was waiting. I didn't know about this little surprise, but apparently Ezra had invited her and Jacen over. Six-year-old Jacen was bouncing around at the entrance, being radiant as usual, and Hera was holding his hand to keep him from doing anything too crazy. So, he was running along the low walls and doing cartwheels instead of Force-empowered jumps and backflips, among the other stuff he does when there's no adult supervision and a lot of open space. Don't ask me how I found out; let's just say it ended with a really impressed mother and a really excited Jacen.

"Hi Bean!" Jacen said breathlessly as Ezra and I strolled up to the front of the building. He tried to hug me but saw Ezra and ran over to him instead. Ezra scooped him up and swung him around as he laughed crazily, at some point saying, "Hi, Eza!"

Hera was a bit more demure in her greeting, but no less joyful. She hugged Ezra tightly and would have hugged me, but I had seven pounds of child in my hands and for some reason, I didn't want to drop tiny little Mira.

"Hi, Sabine," she said instead. "And I believe this is your child?"

I nodded. "Her name is Mira."

"No relation to Elena Alvarez?" Hera asked jokingly.

"No, none. Although, I hear she had quite the successful mission on Abregado-Rae?"

"Yes, she did. Her mirrors did quite a good job with surveillance, but she said the guns she was supplied ran out of ammo too quickly and is trying to find a way to pack more tibanna gas into a single pack. Anyways, are you going to take Jacen and I on a house tour?"

"You know, we would, if we knew the house's layout."

"But didn't you design it?"

"Yes, she did," Ezra chimed in. "But she can't remember anything about it. Which is why I copied her design and made a map."

"Since when were you so thoughtful?" Hera asked, before pushing open the door of the new house and following Ezra inside. I hefted Mira and entered. The main entrance emptied out into the living room, which was currently only sparsely furnished, but that was going to change. A large balcony looked over the living room, which had glass railings that were incredibly expensive but looked awesome. The only thing I was really interested, though, was the kitchen, which we strolled to in record time.

"So, lunch, anyone?" Hera asked. I nodded and rocked Mira as she started to cry.

"I think Mira is hungry, too. But I… I don't…."

Hera smirked, nodded, took my hand, and led me away to show me one of the infinite mysteries of motherhood.

Ten minutes later, I laughed as Hera explained some basic biology to Jacen and made Ezra incredibly uncomfortable.


	20. Something else also happened

Alright, everybody. If you don't know this already, you will now. As you guys know, I've had to post from my phone for the past couple chapters because Fanfiction was blocked on my PC.

Well, something pretty big came up, and I can sum it up in a few words.

I'm posting this chapter from my Chromebook.

-RebelliousWaffle


	21. War Returns

Welcome! This is my Christmas present to you, viewer! This might well be the largest chapter I have ever written, and it may have a few surprises in it ;)

Oh, FYI: Lifeday or Life Day is basically Star Wars Christmas.

Linebreak

I woke up to the almost-musical sound of Hera bustling about early in the morning. Quietly, not wanting to disturb Ezra, I slipped out of the large bed and dressed, throwing on a orange blouse and some dark blue jeans, before joining Hera in the large kitchen.

"Sabine, go look into your daughter's bedroom, and see if you find anything unusual," Hera said as I walked into the kitchen, where she was preparing a light breakfast. I raised an eyebrow and went to Mira's bedroom. Light came out from under the doorway, so I knew she was up. Gently, I pushed the door forward and stepped in.

The difference between the old room and Mira's new room was obvious. I suppose, in retrospect, I should have seen it coming; Mira had asked for my old paint applicator and black, orange, and blue paint. I gave them to her. And, she's my daughter. Of course she was going to create something huge and beautiful in a place that she shouldn't put it.

On the back wall of her room was a jumble of different black triangles, all joined together by orange and blue lines. But, the shapes were arranged in such a way that if one looked at it from almost any direction, it would form the shape of a phoenix in flight, rising from ashes.

"You like it?" Mira asked, sitting on her bed, paint applicator nearby. "It took me a really long time."

"You know, I'd scold you for writing on the walls, but this is beautiful," I responded. "But in the future, tell me before you do this, okay? Then we can do it somewhere that everyone can see it."

Mira had put her head down, but looked up after the word beautiful. "Deal."

"Alright. Now, what'cha working on?"

"A story for English. I'm supposed to write a story about an Imperial defector, but everyone else is coming up with really interesting things and I'm… not. It's irritating."

"Oh, I can help with that. Do you mind if I do something?"

"No, not at all." I accepted the datapad from Mira and brought up a story from my profile. I had written it about six years ago, when there was a minor Imperial faction that was trying to take over the planet and I had to lead the counterattack. (We crushed them.)

Linebreak

Operation Insolence

My small force of Lothalian defenders crouched behind the barricades we had set up. Some were praying. Others were sick with terror. Still more were aiming down their blasters at the stark darkness from which our enemies would charge.

I walked to the front of the line, holding my helmet by my side. Some fighters looked up at me, maybe a bit awestruck that the living legends Sabine Wren Bridger and Ezra Bridger would be fighting side-by-side with them. I looked up and down our defenses, seeing fighters in various states of readiness. In the center of the line were my steeliest fighters, handpicked veteran soldiers with tons of experience. Elsewhere, there were green newbies, freshly recruited, and there were fighters that had trained before but never actually fought live enemies.

"We are mothers," I shouted. The collective head of my warriors looked at me. "We are fathers. We are sons, and we are daughters. But all of us remember the Galactic Civil War, and some of the troopers here may remember the Battle of Anaxes." A small shout of yes came from the lines. "I was ordered to take a regiment of soldiers and play rearguard for the Alliance Army. We called it 'Operation: Suicide March.' And a general asked me, 'How long will you be able to delay the Imperials?' And, my AFC troopers, do you remember my reply? Because you came up with it: We'll fight them, sir, till the nine Corellian Hells freeze over. And then, sir, we will fight them on the ice."

A massive cry came from the troopers I was leading. Everyone took up a blaster and aimed into the darkness as a massive wave of white plastoid came rushing at us. "Pick your targets, troopers, and fire whenever you feel like it."

To prove my point, I took my blasters out and began spraying plasma everywhere. Stormtroopers dropped everywhere, but more came with a bloodcurdling scream and eventually they overran the trench and the fighting turned into a fierce melee, with fighters punching and kicking and stabbing and gouging. I dropped a vibroknife from my vambraces and punched it into a stormtrooper's abdomen before taking it out, ducking a haymaker punch from another trooper, and cutting that trooper's neck, then throwing the knife into another snowman. He dropped like a rock. I uppercut another trooper, before retrieving my knife and stabbing another stormtrooper in the gut.

Still more stormtroopers came. I slashed my knife through another stormtrooper, then ducked a straight punch and flipped the thrower, slicing my knife across his throat and stealing a knife from him, throwing it into a black-clad stormtrooper, who fell on top of one of my AFCs, or Advance Force Commandos. "Thank you, al'verde!"

"Keep your head in the game, Johnston!" I shouted back. I caught a stormtrooper's kick and threw it back, drawing my blaster and shooting them, before taking out my knife and throwing it again, this time at an enemy shock trooper. It stuck in his armor, so I took a tomahawk from a dead Lothalian and ran at the red-and-white shocker, dodging a few blaster bolts on the way and jumping for extra force before burying the tomahawk in his head.

I extracted my knife and whirled around, before taking a blaster bolt to the chest. Some people would have been put out of commission by it. I roared and shot the scout trooper who actually managed to hit something smaller than the side of a barn. Another scout trooper took a potshot at me, so I ducked and hid behind a rock before hurling a grenade into a group of stormtroopers. They flew as the massive yellow-and-blue explosion scorched their armor. The sniper, momentarily distracted, was hit by three bolts of plasma in the visor. The burn marks formed a loose triangle.

By the sunrise, I was one of the fifty-two surviving fighters on what would later be named Massacre Mountain. By the count of the clean-up-crew, we had killed almost a thousand Imperials with only 148 friendlies killed.

Linebreak

"Did you actually do this, Mom?"

"Yep. About four years ago."

"I… You actually did this."

"Yes. Your old mother still has a few stories to tell."

"Mom, you're thirty-nine. You're not old yet."

"Aww, thank you. Feel free to modify this for your needs. Um… Oh! Yeah, Jacen is in the courtyard if you want to mess around with him. I'm going to go help Hera make breakfast."

"Wait! After breakfast, can you… could you help me with something?"

"Yeah, sure! What is it?"

Mira got a mischievous look in her eyes, which made me think that it had something to do with Jacen. "I don't want to say yet."

That's not actually what she said, but what she asked me for advice on is something only a Wren can do. (I'd say a Bridger, but Ezra is too nice to do it.)

After breakfast and helping Mira with her task, I took to helping her with her tactics homework. (Both of them had gone in to the Tactics class at school, which I found… endearing.) The 'mission' they had been given was to take a four-hundred-strong army and defend a quarter-mile ridge with two primary entrances. Up against her was Jacen, who was taking a six-hundred-strong army on a mission to pulverize whoever got in his way. By chance, it was Mira.

The ridge that Mira was defending was a good position: there were only two readily-obvious ways to get up the barren cliffs. These were small passages with arches over them that looked like caves at first glance, but actually led to the top of the mesa. Mira had deployed one-hundred-fifty troops to each exit. The remaining troops she kept as a mobile garrison, to be sent to wherever there was a breach. These hundred troops were divided into 'squadrons' of twenty people, which were further divided into squads of five.

At the exits of the tunnels was a line of anti-tank 'hedgehogs' and behind that, razor wire. Repeating blasters had been set up above the exit from the hole, which would rake the enemies with blaster bolts, and sandbags had troopers hiding behind them on the sides. This became nicknamed Operation: Hell's Gate by her class, apparently, as the only way they could break through was with heavy bombing, air support, and artillery barrages. Well, Jacen actually did break through at one point, but Mira's mobile garrison force defeated them before they could get through and actually do anything.

Jacen, on the other hand, was in the tough spot of having to evict Mira with nothing but artillery and infantry, with no armor support. Through extensive scouting, he did manage to find a backdoor trail, but it only lead to another mesa. That particular mesa was a great spot for artillery, but the trail was too narrow to get any unit other than infantry up. A detachment of snipers did do some damage to one of the tunnel guards, but the other tunnel was out of range.

Frankly, even I had a tough time dealing with Mira's setup. What I ended up doing was shelling Mira into submission and then having my troops scale the cliffs. (Frankly, the simplest way to eliminate all enemy forces from the area was to have the ship that brought us, the Black Sparrow, bombard the area from orbit.)

Heck, even Hera had a hard time evicting my daughter from her mesa. She settled for my tactic of mass artillery as well.

After Mira's homework was done, she began playing some game on her holoscreen. It was called something like Operation Wind Bastion. Or was that the update for it? Maybe the game was called Rainbow Six. Yeah, it was called that, but it had something after it that I don't remember. Anyways, I took advantage of my time to myself to go to Lothal's open air market, which had basically everything you could want on Lothal. I looked over the throng of people from a tapcaf nearby, mentally making a shopping list of things to buy and musing about the differences between my daughter and Hera's son. Mira was a technologically inclined warrior, who used her wits to her advantage. If the need arose, she was also a capable martial artist who could do serious damage to any opponent. She was unquestionably strong, too. I had seen her punch through a small slab of duracrete (it's actually easier than it sounds). Plus, she had potential as a Jedi, but she had confided in me that she didn't want to be a Jedi or anything like that.

Jacen, on the other hand, was a silver-tongued charmer able to talk his way out of a lot of situations. Hera, Ezra, and I had grown immune to his sweet-talking very early on. He was reasonably fit, too, but I didn't think that he would be setting any strength records without some serious training. He could still hold his own in a fight, though, and he was Force-Sensitive. From what I could tell, he enjoyed using the Force to do basic things.

As I looked over the crowd, though, I saw something not so nice: two men, in black suits, who had hands hovering over their hips as they talked to a lady and, presumably, her child. One of them put a hand inside his coat and flicked something free. I stood up as the lady and the kid went rigid, then put their heads down.

"Hey! What's going on?" I asked as I neared the group. One of the men looked at me with a death glare.

"Nothing, citizen. Move along."

"No. I want to know what's happening. Why are you taking this lady and a kid?"

The black-suited man shoved me backwards. "You must leave."

"Oh, you are asking for a beatdown," I muttered. The black-suit man threw a punch at me. I danced to the side and kicked his leg. He stumbled and fell. His friend threw a clumsy haymaker punch at me. Had it hit me, it would have been an instant knockout.

But the thing is, if you put all your power into a haymaker, you sacrifice balance. Expecting to meet resistance, the guy throwing the haymaker stumbled as I stepped to the side. Then, I kicked his back, sending him crashing to the ground. Bad Guy Numero Uno came charging at me, before throwing a jab and a straight punch. The first I dodged, and the second I deflected and twisted behind his back, spinning him to the ground. His friend tried to kick me, but I rolled to the side and stood up, kicking Bad Guy number 2 square in the chest, sending him down to one knee, before kicking him in the jawline and knocking him out. The other guy had gotten to his feet by now, but I kicked him in the shin and then punched him in the jawline, knocking him out as well.

I looked up from my preoccupation to find three other men in black staring at me. "Oh, for the love of gods..."

Two of them came at me with punches at the same time. I tripped one, sending him flying into his friend, and then kicked him in the crotch. The third opponent tried to clock me in the jaw. It didn't work. I responded with a devastating right hook punch to the jawline, which knocked the SOB down instantly, snuffing him like a candle. The second attacker slowly got to his feet and launched a torrent of strikes at me, which I blocked easily before planting my foot into his chest. He fell like a stone before I kicked him in the side and probably shattered his ribs.

Another three men in black took out vibroswords. A small crowd began to gather.

"Could you three, like, go away?" I asked. They shook their heads, so I ran at them, jumping and kicking one of them in the chin. They dropped like a rock. I took up their vibrosword and blocked a slice from one of my attackers before thrusting the sword into his abdomen. I left it in him to give him a better chance for survival and rolled to the side of a sword slice before spinning myself and sweeping the legs out from under my opponent and kicking his face savagely.

I looked up and found no remaining enemies, so I strode over to where the lady and the kid were. "Are you two okay?"

"Oh, my gods thank you! I thought we were dead!" the lady gushed. I smiled.

"Who were those guys?" I asked next.

"Bad guys," the kid supplied.

"Kidnappers," the lady replied.

"Well, they hopefully won't bother you again," I said. "Now, I have something to look for."

I walked over to one of the fallen enemies and rifled through his pockets. "Looks like you have some flimsi. Let's see what you're hiding… for fek's sake!"

I held a copy of guess who's holo number? Josh fekking Vanderbleid. So, he was dabbling in slave trading now. Good to know; that would be another charge to convict him of. That is, if he didn't die from bleeding out first, the chaakar little demagolka.

Having grabbed what I needed, I paid a call to Tosh. Remember him? He's the guy at the LDC. Anyways, Tosh said he'd send a team down to clean up the mess. Sure enough, three minutes later, a forensics team, accompanied by a SPDF (Small-Perimeter Defense Force) and I left the area, entering the market, looking around for the little gilded charm that had caught my eye a few minutes before, along with a dragon scarf that Mira had said she wanted for Life Day. I found the dragon scarf easily enough; It certainly stood out. (Then again, so did Mira. She was not one for covert ops.) I fingered the gauzy fabric, running a hand along the carefully embroidered, almost serpentine design of the fire-breathing animal. It was beautiful. Even if it looked a tiny bit tacky to me. But I could see why Mira wanted it so much.

I checked the price tag, on the other side of the scarf. It was surprisingly cheap for the quality of the work. I payed for it and with the purchase got a synthsilk bag to put it in for free. I doubted that I would use it for anything but Lifeday shopping, though. To this day (thirteen years later) I have only used it for Lifeday.

A few meters away, I saw the little gilded charm. It was a little charm of a Special Forces operator from the Jednostka Wojskowa 2305, better known as the JW GROM, an elite unit in the Rebellion known for being both experts in field medicine (specifically, surgery in the field) and surgical strikes against hardened targets.

A/N: The JW GROM is actually a real Special Forces unit. Think of them as the Polish answer to the American Navy SEALs or the US Army Delta Force, or the Canadian JTF2. They're on the same level.

The actual operator was a mysterious figure, with a mask and a helmet covering most of his face and a blaster rifle slung across their back, with a blaster pistol held in two hands in front of them. Their cloak, whirling around their back, had two twin black lines down the left side and their torso had a blaster-resistant armor on their torso that held extra magazines and what looked like a pistol holder and a knife, although their waist had a pistol holster riding it on the left. Maybe it had a pistol in it. I couldn't tell. The operator's legs had nothing noteworthy on them, but there was something that looked like a boot spike on the operator's boots, probably to make kicking an opponent more effective. I had poisoned ones, as a matter of fact, and they were some first-class weapons.

I bought the charm and received a small box with paper stuffed inside to cushion the bauble. The little box had a little 'P' with what looked a bit like a grappling hook at the bottom of it. It was the official logo of the GROM. I think that it

 _ **Very Important Linebreak**_

Sabine looked up suddenly from her datapad, looking out the window as a siren sounded and a planetary shield activated. The blue energy field swallowed the sky.

"What in haran?"

Sabine left her datapad on the table, still running, and walked into the large courtyard of the house, looking up to see five dark, imposing triangles hovering over Lothal's atmosphere. "Kurwa. Ezra! Hera! Come quick."

The two other parents heard Sabine's cry and walked to the courtyard. Sabine pointed upwards once both of them were there.

"Oh, no," Hera breathed. "Those are ISDs."

Sabine nodded grimly. "I'm willing to bet they're First Order ISDs. They must be massive to be visible from down here."

"Should we scramble fighters?" Ezra asked. "Our Defenders have enough firepower to break through their shields. Probably."

"It's the probably that worries me," Hera said. Sabine opened up an encrypted holochannel with Tosh, the leader of the Lothal Defense Force, and Ciena Ree, the leader of the Defense Force's Fighter Wings.

Both answered the comm channels in record time. "You seeing what I'm seeing?" Sabine asked.

"If you see FOSDs, yes," Ciena responded. FOSD meant First Order Star Destroyer. "I'm scrambling Warwolf Wing right now to check their intentions and readying Cobalt, Siren, and Wraith Wings. Have either of you received any contact from Thane?" She was referring to Thane Kyrell, her husband. "I sent him to check five hyperspace signatures at J3, and he hasn't responded."

"No, I haven't," Tosh said. Sabine shook her head negative. Ciena's head sank before she gasped.

"Hang on," she said, her holo deactivating for a few seconds. Her image reappeared after seven seconds of silence, this time bringing Thane Kyrell, leader of Light Wing, the most prestigious of all the Defender Wings on Lothal.

"Sorry I couldn't get here earlier," he said sheepishly. "Damn FOR jammed my teams comms. They're aggressive, too. They shot down Light Seven after we established comms and asked for their IDs, then sent fighters after us. They have no missile-defense capability, but they can fire missiles. Apparently, the idea of chaff and flares didn't occur to them. But my wing is out of flares and chaff and we're running out of missiles and gas. Can you open up a hole in the the shield on the North side, sector K5?"

"Roger. Be there in thirty seconds or you're not getting through."

"Roger. I signal when we're safe."

Thane's image fizzled and died. Ciena breathed a sigh of relief. Tosh shook his head.

"Sabine, can you organize a defensive line for the city?" Tosh asked. "I've got my hands full with reports from around the sector that FO ships are breaking in."

"Of course. Send me troop counts, likely areas for attack, and anything else that might help."

"I'll get someone on that right away," Tosh responded. "Is Hera with you?"

"Yes, I'm here," Hera said. "I'll help Sabine."

"Alright. Good. Also, make sure Ezra and Ahsoka follow Code Thirteen."

"Copy. Ezra! Code Thirteen."

Ezra nodded and sprinted away to find Ahsoka. Sabine looked back to Tosh, who looked at the holo with absolute conviction.

"Sabine. Hera. If you lose your grip on the city center, fall back to the spaceport and call in Code One. If we lose the spaceport, call Code Two."

Code One was a call for the total evacuation and subsequent destruction of Lothal. It was an absolute last resort. Code Two was a gradual, covert evacuation of Lothal, in case of occupation. "Rendezvous on Haven?"

"Correct."

Ciena spoke up again. "Light Wing is safe and returning. I'm sending Warwolf Wing and Wraith Wing to harass enemy landers. Siren and Cobalt Wings are going to see if they can't take down any of the SDs and I'm readying Yamamoto Wing for evac escort, if need be."

"Alright," Tosh said. "If the First Order wants a war, let's give them one."

One hour later, Sabine ducked under a barrage of blaster fire. Her section of AFC troopers was all that was holding the Azadi Bridge, the final checkpoint before anyone could enter Lothal City. A large river ran around the city, which was both a beautiful tourist attraction and a terrific chokepoint. Barricades and burning repulsor tanks covered the road, with broken corpses scattered in between. Almost every surface had some sort of blaster mark on it. These were most obvious on the bright, almost blinding white of the First Order stormtroopers, but if one looked close enough, one could see the burns on the AFC troopers that had fallen in defense of the Azadi Bridge. Their black armor provided a stark contrast to the white enemy troopers.

Red blaster bolts criss-crossed the bridge and soldiers cried out in pain. There were occasional explosions as fighters tore apart the skies above. Ezra stood on the bridge, lightsaber flashing, deflecting shots from stormtroopers. A AFC trooper threw a grenade, which blew several stormtroopers hiding behind a destroyed tank high into the air and revealed an enemy armor unit.

"Enemy armor!" a soldier cried out. Sabine responded.

"I see it. Cover me!"

Sabine vaulted the cover she was hiding behind and began a mad dash from cover to cover, squeezing off a few blaster shots at targets as she ran. Closing to just a few feet, the jumped onto the tank and opened a hatch.

A First Order tanker looked up at her. She smirked under her helmet.

"Hold this," Sabine said, priming a grenade and tossing it in before kicking the hatch closed and running back to cover. The tank exploded violently behind her.

An especially lucky stormtrooper scored a lucky shot. Sabine fell to the ground hard, not forgetting to shoot the stormtrooper that shot her in the forehead as she fell, before quickly examining her wound. Gritting her teeth to ease the pain, she dragged herself to cover before applying a bacta patch, then attempting to stand and falling back down.

"Medic!" someone shouted. A AFC trooper with a medical badge ran over to her and opened a small medkit as blastershots pinged off the durasteel barricade. A TIE fighter streaked overhead, rolling and diving, trying to shake off the Defender behind it. The Defender was holding onto the TIE's tail tightly, though, and was matching all of it's moves. Eventually, the TIE dropped towards the bridge, aiming to maneuver under it tightly. The Defender matched the move and soared underneath the Azadi Bridge before firing it's wingtip cannons. The shots ripped into the TIEs wing, causing severe damage and making it catch fire. The TIE began to spin in circles before colliding with the ground, the frame shattering and cartwheeling before staying in the ground, the pilot certainly dead. The Defender ascended to the sky, twirling before coming back down and strafing the First Order lines. But it wasn't enough. An AFC trooper fell next to Ezra, his helmet cracking in half as he hit the ground. Another soldier was shot in the chest and dropped to the floor, dead before he hit the ground. Yet another trooper primed a grenade before being shot in the arm. He dropped it, but by some miracle another trooper grabbed it and threw it. The explosion was far too close for comfort and took out the wounded trooper and sprayed shrapnel across the second thrower and a third trooper. All three were now out of the fight.

A massive explosion rocked the bridge, tossing a few troopers out of cover and knocking them out. The AFC troopers were now reduced to twenty-three hardened veterans. These fighters, veterans of battles from Sernpidal to Kintooine, may have had experience on their side, but numbers were beginning to give too much of an advantage.

Multiple TIEs now streaked over the bridge. The beleaguered Defenders in the sky fought them valiantly, but for the AFC troops on the bridge, it wasn't enough. Their position would fall soon, but all of them were determined to die at their guns. First Order walkers began to advance on the bridge, the ground trembling beneath their footsteps-

"Reinforcements! Reinforcements have arrived!"

The cry, shrill and piercing, cut through the haze of adrenaline that all the New Republic soldiers felt. Several looked back to see a brigade of T7-B tanks rolling towards the bridge, weapons ready to incinerate anything that stood in their way. Several anti-armor missiles streaked away from them, crashing into the walkers, sending them spinning and twirling to the ground. Once deadly instruments of destruction, they were now nothing but scrap metal.

The T7-Bs continued their advance on the bridge, spraying blaster fire at the now-retreating stormtroopers. The AFC troopers paused for only a second before adding their own fire with a cry of pure hatred that sent shivers down the spines of the stormtroopers. The AFC troopers vaulted their cover and ran forward, screaming as they collided with the First Order troopers.

It was anarchy. Everywhere, the fighting broke down into scores of individual combat, with AFC troopers sometimes taking on two or three times the amount of stormtroopers and winning easily. Ezra made his blade dance as he fought fifteen stormtroopers, the emerald saber slicing through their armor and weapons like a hot knife through Dantooine butter. A stormtrooper threw a kick at him. He danced to the side and blasted three troopers with the Force, sending them crashing into double their number with minimal effort. He ducked and spun, killing two more stormtroopers as he did so, before reversing his grip and plunging the verdant sword into another snowman, dropping him instantly. He pulled the blade out and sliced the arm of another trooper, making them drop to the ground in agony, sobbing in pain.

It was too much for the stormtroopers. They broke and ran, leaving almost three-fourths of their men lying on the field dead. Out of fifteen officers, two lived, and both were severely wounded.

It was a crushing defeat for the First Order.

The battle for Lothal still raged in the atmosphere. Defenders twirled and dove with amazing agility as TIEs took brutal hits and stayed in the air. In space, the three remaining First Order Star Destroyers fired anti-fighter guns at the multirole bombers that flew in random patterns, supported by T-70 X-Wings that rolled and climbed and wove around reinforced durasteel pillars.

Light Wing ascended through the cloud-cover, breaking through the atmosphere. Ciena Ree sucked in a breath at the battle above the clouds.

"Well, that's where the assistance call came from," Thane said, over comms. "Let's see if we can't help."

"Of course," Zane Lathal responded. Zane, a fighter ace from Corellia that became disillusioned with the Empire at age 18 and enlisted with the Rebellion, had participated in the battles of Coruscant and almost all of the battles in between, had earned the nickname 'Lethal' when a fellow pilot had mispronounced his last name.

This would be the last time that name was used in a combat situation.

Light Wing, emerging from the atmosphere, was an easy target for the veteran TIE pilots of Dark Squadron. The leader of Dark immediately pressed down the trigger on his joystick, spitting green bolts at Zane. The Corellian's wing was sheared off almost immediately and gravity took hold of his craft, sending it back down to the planet below. Almost a second later, Light Wing took evasive maneuvers, flipping their crafts around to face the new threat. Lasers began to split the sky apart.

Ciena made her fighter roll to the side and dropped in behind an enemy TIE, blasting the cockpit apart. A laser blast pinged off her shields, and Ciena quickly adjusted her fighter, swerving around and shooting down her attacker.

"Ciena, behind you!" Thane called, and not a second too soon. As Ciena threw her fighter into a steep dive, laser blasts cleaved through the space she had been filling nearly a millisecond before.

Thane, seeing Ciena's craft drop, thought she had been killed by the laser blast. Almost instantly, he was on the shooter, who was incidentally the leader of Dark Squadron. The TIE was rocked by point-blank laser blasts and it's wing was sheared in half before the cockpit was obliterated.

Ciena, not one to miss the action, came back up from the bottom and let a flurry of plasma loose as well, shattering the cockpit from the bottom.

And, just like that, the battle was over as quickly as it had begun.

"Light Wing, call in," Thane said. Lights 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7 all reported in. Light 3 and Light 6 had both fallen under Dark Squadron's onslaught.

Thane hung his head in shame. That had been his fault. If he had just thought that maybe someone had seen them coming up and scrambled an intercept party, then maybe-

"Thane, shut up."

It was Ciena, on a private channel between them. He could almost see her beautiful face screwed up with irritation at the fact that he was angry at himself.

"Ciena, just once, let me take the blame."

"No. Not allowing that."

"Ciena…"

"Still not allowing you, Kyrell."

Thane shook his head ruefully before turning his attention to the battle unfolding before his eyes.

"Alright, let's join Monarch Wing," he said, over comms, making his fighter race towards the combat zone, the rest of Light Wing following close behind. Monarch Wing was the best space-bound wing, so it had been one of the first fighter wings to head up and fight. As Light Wing got closer, they could see evidence of the fighting: destroyed TIEs, floating in the dark matter of space (surprisingly, scientists still couldn't figure out exactly what space was full of) and TIE interceptors, as well as wrecked landing craft.

Laser blasts and specks circled the massive star destroyer in the distance, rapidly getting bigger as Light Wing approached the battle, ready to fight. Thane looked down at the planet and took comfort in the solid energy bubble that covered Capital City, making it almost impervious to any orbital bombardment.

He thought it was his vision that failed for a second.

To his horror, it wasn't his vision.

The shield bubble around Capital City flickered and failed, it's blue hue falling within three seconds. To everyone watching, it felt like an eternity, as if time had slowed down. But just as soon as time stopped, it started again. Turbolaser blasts began to fall onto the urban center, causing untold devastation. A burst of panicked comm chatter came from Monarch Wing, Light Wing, and the ground-pounders below.

Thane shook his head to clear it and took charge of the situation. "All wings engaging FOSDs, refocus fire to turbolasers, priority one."

In Basic, that meant everyone in a fighter attacking the star destroyers should immediately switch their fire to the turbolasers firing on the surface of Lothal and destroy them. High power, anti-armor missiles streaked away from wingtips, crashing into the massive cannons and destroying vital firing systems. One particularly lucky pilot scored a hit that exposed a vital gas line that was ignited by the explosions of the missiles. The Star Destroyer was rocked by a massive explosion that tore through the ship, igniting it's reactor and sending the ship into a massive fireball. The humongous ship was torn apart by fire and explosions that sent it falling from orbit into Lothal's fields.

"Someone figure out what just got hit!" Monarch One shouted over comms. "And once you do that, hit it more!"

"Monarch Lead, it looks like it was an explosion that ignited tibanna gas and created a chain reaction to the core," Monarch Two, real name David Pierce, said. A graduate of the Imperial Academy on Lothal a year before it closed down, he had been the most intellectually astute of his class and showed great promise in the starfighter corps. Then, he had seen a mass execution ordered by the Empire, where three TIEs were ordered to clear 90,000 refugees from a road. He was behind the controls of a X-Wing less than a week later.

The twisted, broken bodies were a subject he wanted to forget and remember, at the same time. It made him sick, but it gave him the drive to head forward.

Less than an hour later, three Star Destroyers had been scrapped.

Sabine sat down at a desk and looked over her memoirs of her life that she had been writing. She had already published the first volume, about her time as a part of the Rebel Alliance. It had been called Rebels. She had been writing a second volume, about the rest of her life after finding her husband. But now….

Now, she had something else to write about. She tapped the title of the story and looked over the Mando'a lettering that carefully spelled out Searching For My Love.

It was time for a change.

She wouldn't change what she had already written, of course. Too many hours had been sunk into the original story to just be deleted. But there would be thirteen years of emptiness.

She was Sabine Wren. She was forty-one. She was a mother, a wife, and a Mandalorian commander in the Resistance. And now, she was the author of Resistance.


	22. It Happened Again, Guys

I don't understand.

My favorite author received too many hateful comments and left.

My next favorite author received too many hateful comments and left. (You two know who you are. Luv you.)

Is it me? Do I direct the hate? Or are they both just unlucky?

I hate the fact that I have to ask these questions. And I know when I'm on the hateful's hit list, I'll feel it. And I'll consider leaving, too. I know I will.

May God have mercy upon you, haters, because I sure won't.

-RebelliousWaffle, a proud writer


End file.
